Phono Accessory Reviews

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Phono Accessory Reviews
Spin Doctor #4: Platter Mats, Clamps, Weights & the Timerette
Michael Trei  |  Aug 29, 2023  |  5 comments
The next time you're preparing to play a record, try doing a little experiment. Once you have the record mounted and spinning but before you lower the stylus into the groove, lower your gaze to just below record level and look for a gap between the platter and the record. It helps if there's a light source or a brightly colored wall behind the platter. You may discover a gap—that very little of the record's playing area is making true contact with the platter mat or (if there is no mat) the platter. Another way to test this is to take a record you don't care much about, put it on the platter, then tap with your finger in the groove area listening for a click as your finger pushes the record down and it contacts the platter surface.

Warps obviously lead to such problems, but even records that appear flat make scant contact with the supporting surface. Turntable and aftermarket accessory designers have recognized this problem for decades.

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Phono Accessory ReviewsPhono Cartridge ReviewsSpin Doctor
Spin Doctor #1: Shaknspin2 & Miyajima Kotetu Mono Phono Cartridge
Michael Trei  |  May 15, 2023  |  4 comments
Over the last 40 years, I have set up or serviced literally thousands of turntables, and during that time I have seen a lot of increasingly sophisticated tools become available to help in getting your turntable optimized. I've had my eye on the Shaknspin speed analyzer since it was launched a couple of years ago, and now there's a new Shaknspin2, which promises more accurate results.
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Phono Accessory Reviews
Nessie Vinylcleaner ProPlus+ record cleaning machine
Julie Mullins  |  Mar 30, 2023  |  0 comments
I'm a music lover first, not the most Type A of audiophiles. Sure, I clean my records, but I'm not obsessive about keeping them immaculate like my audiophile father is; he cleans each record ultrasonically before it lands on his turntable platter, writing the date of each record's last bath and which cleaning machine he used on the outside of a fresh plastic inner sleeve before sliding the LP back inside. I don't think his cleaning schedule is rigid—he has far too many LPs for that—but it's regular. Whenever I visit with LPs in tow, they must pass through the record-cleaning machine (RCM) gauntlet before they're permitted to land on his turntable's platter...

Recently, I tried out one of the many RCMs currently on the market: the redundantly named Nessie Vinylcleaner ProPlus+ ($2495), which despite the name does not hail from Scotland, nor is it a monster; in fact it's smaller than some other record cleaners I've used.

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Gramophone DreamsPhono Accessory ReviewsPhono Cartridge Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #67: Grado Platinum3 and Goldring Eroica H phono cartridges; Herbie's Way Excellent II turntable mat
Herb Reichert  |  Nov 22, 2022  |  5 comments
In last month's Gramophone Dreams, I explained why doing any sort of empirical study of high-quality digital sources was extremely difficult. That any success I might achieve as a reporter would boil down to my ability to employ metaphors to describe a DAC's clarity and dynamic personality. Concocting metaphors for DAC reviews is risky because it assumes readers will be familiar with the sound of my amplifier and speakers and, ideally, with one of the DACs I'm using in the comparison. That's a lot to assume.
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Analog CornerPhono Accessory Reviews
Analog Corner #322: Another Angle on Vinyl Playback & the Massif Audio Design Prime Reference Record Weight
Michael Fremer  |  May 24, 2022  |  3 comments
The stylus that cuts the grooves in your favorite records is best described, in simple terms, as "chisel-shaped." The most accurate playback styli—the "extreme" ones that extract the maximum amount of information from the grooves—have a similar shape, with sharper and more severe contact edges than a standard elliptical stylus, itself an advance over spherical styli.
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Analog CornerPhono Accessory ReviewsPhono Cartridge Reviews
Analog Corner #321: EMT JSD Novel Titan MC cartridge, Fozgometer V2, Mat Chakra, WAM Wallyscope
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 27, 2022  |  2 comments
Let's get right to it: The best way to set azimuth, as I recently wrote in this space, is to measure crosstalk using either a high-quality voltmeter or a digital oscilloscope and a good test record like Analogue Productions' The Ultimate Analogue Test LP (AAPT1). The traditional, qualitative procedure—setting the headshell so that it's parallel to the record surface—assures only cosmetic satisfaction.
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Analog CornerPhono Accessory ReviewsPhono Cartridge ReviewsTurntable Reviews
Analog Corner #320: DYLP phono cartridges, SME Model 6 Classic turntable, Loricraft PRC6i record cleaning machine
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 29, 2022  |  7 comments
What? Suddenly a new Japanese cartridge manufacturer? That's what I was thinking when Mockingbird Distribution's Phillip Holmes dropped three cartridges on me from DYLP Audio. Never heard of them—but then I'd not heard of MuTech either when Holmes sent me one of that company's $4500 RM-Kanda (now Hyabusa) moving coil cartridges, which I reviewed in the March 2019 issue's Analog Corner. If that cartridge is not on your moving coil radar, you ought to put it there.
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Analog CornerPhono Accessory ReviewsPhono Cartridge Reviews
Analog Corner #317: Ortofon Verismo phono cartridge, Orb DF-01IA disc flattener, RSX Beyond interconnect
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 28, 2021  |  3 comments
Ortofon had hoped to introduce its new MC Verismo phono cartridge "in person" at one of last fall's North American shows, but those shows never took place. COVID necessitated instead an October 30 live Facebook introduction, the company's first such premier. The next day, AnalogPlanet posted an exclusive interview with Leif Johannsen, the cartridge's designer and Ortofon's chief officer of acoustics and technology.
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Analog CornerPhono Accessory ReviewsPhono Cartridge ReviewsPhono Preamp Reviews
Analog Corner #316: Analog Relax EX1000 phono cartridge, Luminous Audio Technology Arion Mk.II phono preamplifier, WallyTools cartridge inspection service
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 30, 2021  |  0 comments
So glad to be back in business with superclean electricity! Especially having spent the last few weeks listening to the remarkably pure-sounding Analog Relax EX1000 cartridge ($16,000).

The brochure asks, "Have you heard of YAKUSUGI Cedar?" No. I had never heard of Analog Relax, either. If you have heard of it, you're at least one step ahead of me.

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Gramophone DreamsPhono Accessory ReviewsPhono Cartridge Reviews
Gramophone Dreams #54: DS Audio DS003 optical cartridge & EMIA, Lundahl, Koetsu, Sculpture A step-up transformers
Herb Reichert  |  Nov 04, 2021  |  17 comments
In the household I grew up in, telling a lie was a death-penalty offense—worse than murder or leaving crumbs on the kitchen counter. So, believe me when I tell you that way more than a year ago, Musical Surroundings' Garth Leerer sent me DS Audio's lowest priced optical cartridge, the DS-E1 ($2750 with energizer/equalizer, footnote 1). He said, "You need to know about this." Then every few months he would write and politely inquire how I was liking it. Each time I would write back saying, "I'm sorry Garth, I haven't tried it yet, but I'll install it right after deadline."
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Analog CornerPhono Accessory Reviews
Analog Corner #312: WallyTools & the WallyReference
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 20, 2021  |  13 comments
Held every November in normal times, the annual Warsaw Audio Video Show is among the world's largest. I first attended a decade ago, in 2011, and was amazed by both the number of attendees—more than 10,000 people—and demographics that skewed young and included many families. That show was bigger and better-attended than any I've been to in America.
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Analog CornerPhono Accessory ReviewsPhono Cartridge Reviews
Analog Corner # 305: Degritter record cleaner & Aidas Gala Gold LE cartridge
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 21, 2020  |  40 comments
Cavitation revolutionized record cleaning more than a decade ago, when Reiner Gläss's Audiodesksysteme introduced its original fully automatic machine. Mr. Gläss's innovative machine, which automatically spun the record in ultrasonically cavitated water, then dried it with fans, at first was plagued with reliability issues, and because it is sealed, it was not easy to repair.
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Analog CornerPhono Accessory Reviews
Analog Corner #287: The Charles Kirmuss Vinyl Restoration System
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 03, 2020  |  First Published: Jul 01, 2019  |  23 comments
Back in the 1990s, my friend Nick Despotopoulos and I published an article in The Tracking Angle titled "Zen and the Art of Record Cleaning Made Difficult," describing author Michael Wayne's record-cleaning methodology. That regimen, like the article itself, was the most comprehensive one I knew of at the time.
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Analog CornerPhono Accessory Reviews
Analog Corner #303: Accessorize Your Ride
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 27, 2020  |  17 comments
In place of my usual Wilson Alexxes, a pair of small (though very fine) two-way speakers has been in my system this past month: the Marten Oscar Duos I review elsewhere in this issue. Without my usual reference speakers in the system, I didn't feel comfortable covering anything that affects sound quality for this column, so, with the exception of one item—the first—this column covers accessories that don't require sonic evaluation.
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Computer Audio ReviewsPhono Accessory ReviewsPhono Preamp Reviews
Channel D Pure Vinyl 5 & Seta L phono preamplifier
John Atkinson  |  Oct 22, 2020  |  11 comments
Ever since I stopped using my Audio Research SP10 preamplifier in the early 1990s—its eight phono-stage tubes used to get too noisy too quickly—I tried a variety of standalone phono preamplifiers. Seeing the most service through the 1990s and 2000s were, first, a Mod Squad Phono Drive EPS, then a Linn Linto, both of which I purchased. But when I measured Channel D's Seta Model L, which Michael Fremer reviewed in the August 2010 issue, the Linto was pushed to one side. The battery-powered Seta L (footnote 1) had the lowest noise and distortion I had encountered in a phono preamplifier, and I eventually bought the sample I had been sent for a follow-up review in 2013.
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