LATEST ADDITIONS

This was supposed to be my report on analog gear at Home Entertainment 2004 West. The San Francisco show was canceled because of a hotel-workers’ lockout, but my column wasn’t! Fortunately, I’d gotten an early start on what was to be next month’s column because I wanted to actually get ahead on the audio-reviewing assembly line. No such luck.

The picture purposely obscures this moving magnet cartridge installed in the Rega Planar 8 tonearm plugged into the Graham Slee Accession. That's because I don't want you to know its identity. Rather, please listen to the file and tell everyone how much you'd be willing to pay for it and how you think it sounds.

For almost two decades now British phono preamp manufacturer Graham Slee has been designing, producing and selling specialized high quality phono preamplifiers. His latest is the $1449 Accession, an unusually versatile model that includes a volume pot, which means the Accession can be used as preamplifier to drive a power amplifier. If all you plan on doing is playing records using one turntable and a moving magnet cartridge (or a high output MC or moving iron), the Accession obviates the need for a separate preamplifier.