Phono Accessory Reviews

Ron Sutherland has devised the Timeline, a device for testing the 33.33 and 45rpm speeds of turntables. It's housed in a disc of aluminum and Delrin that fits over the platter spindle. Turn it on, and an LED shoots a red dash of light at the wall (if there is one) behind your turntable. If the dash doesn't move, the speed is correct. If it drifts to left or right, you'll need to adjust the 'table's speed. Unless your wall has hash marks, there's a bit of subjectivity involved, and at $399 the Timeline isn't cheap, but Sutherland says he's not making much money at that price, and that it will take a lot of sales to recoup the R&D he's put into designing something as precise as he claims the Timeline is.—Michael Fremer

As long as you're spinning an LP for your listening pleasure, and if digitizing it at a resolution of 24-bit/192kHz is transparent to the analog source, why not record and store the LP on your computer at that high sampling rate for future convenient playback via iTunes or for iPod use, or for burning to CD-R? And, while you're at it, why not record the LP unequalized and apply the RIAA curve in the digital domain, where you're not dependent on capacitors and resistors that are imprecise to begin with, and can drift over time? With no drift of phase or value, the virtual filter's results should be better than with any analog filter. And in the digital domain, you can program in any curve known, and select it at the click of a mouse. Aside from the sweat equity invested in programming it in the first place, it wouldn't add a penny to the program's cost.

This whole thing started up again when I tried to improve the phono-input section of my main system—not to enhance its performance (although you might expect that to happen), but to provide a fairer, more flexible context for evaluating new cartridges.

The 78rpm train has been derailed for the time being. The KAB Souvenir VSP Mk.II phono preamplifier, which I intended to review in this space, has yet to arrive from its manufacturer, owing to a delay in the availability of certain parts. The Elberg MD12 Mk.III preamp has yet to arrive from its manufacturer, owing to a recent redesign. The Sentec EQ-10 preamp is here but has a broken switch I haven't got around to fixing. The McIntosh C-8 preamp, a lovely vintage piece that's available for peanuts on the used market, is still undergoing renovation by someone who isn't me.

Analog maven Wally Malewicz is no stranger to these pages. His first commercial product, a cartridge-alignment tool called the WallyTractor, became a hit among the vinyl cognoscenti after Michael Fremer wrote about it in "Analog Corner" in the November 1998 Stereophile, and Malewicz's full kit of Wally Analog Tools was the joint winner of our Accessory">http://www.stereophile.com/features/724/index5.html">Accessory of the Year award in 2002.

Stuff that works, stuff that holds up/
The kind of stuff you don't hang on the wall/
Stuff that's real, stuff you feel/
The kind of stuff you reach for when you fall.

LAST (Liquid Archival Sound Treatment) is a record treatment developed by one Dr. Catalano, which promises to retard dramatically the wear of vinyl discs. I don't feel that the advent of true digital discs will diminish the importance of LAST; on the contrary, as this century comes to a close many stereo records will be in their 30s and 40s and in need of as much preservation as possible, if the sounds and performances we treasure are to be preserved.