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SME Updates Loricraft's Record Cleaning Machines
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 18, 2022  |  18 comments
When SME purchased Garrard it also bought the Loricraft brand of "string type" record cleaning machines. SME then upgraded both models. This video shows how they work and accompany a write-up in the April 2022 issue of Stereophile magazine that will shortly be available on newsstands, mailed to subscribers and available as part of a digital subscription.
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Sweepstakes
Carlos Santana's Blessings and Miracles Sweepstakes!
Analog Planet Staff  |  Mar 18, 2022  |  185 comments
Register to win one of three Carlos Santana Blessings and Miracles Vinyl Editions (value $34.98 each), or a limited edition Carlos Santana hand signed Blessings & Miracles PRS SE Doublecut Electric Guitar (value: $2,995/priceless) we are giving away.

"Santana delivers one of the most ambitious, inspired, and magical records of his storied career. There are genre-bending, hook-filled celebrations featuring Rob Thomas, Chris Stapleton, G-Eazy, American Authors and Ally Brooke, and thrilling feats of bravura musicianship that pair the guitar master with fellow icons like Chick Corea and Steve Winwood, and knockout rockers with Metallica's Kirk Hammett and Living Colour's Corey Glover, among others."

"Featuring the artwork from the 2021 Blessings and Miracles release, this Santana Student Edition PRS electric guitar is a must have for any collector. This is a very limited run of these guitars and is hand signed by Carlos Santana."

[This Sweepstakes is now Closed.]

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Analog Gear NewsNews
KUZMA Announces New SAFIR 9 Tonearm
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 17, 2022  |  26 comments
Following 5 years of R&D Franc Kuzma today introduced his latest creation, the SAFIR 9 tonearm. The conical arm tube is fabricated from sapphire— "the first implementation of the precious stone" for this application.

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Set-Up Tips
Zenith Angle File Reveal!
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 16, 2022  |  7 comments
The recent Zenith angle error story gave readers a choice of two files, one that corrected the zenith angle error built into the cantilever because the stylus was inserted "off" by about 4 degrees and the other set up using the cantilever to set stylus groove tangency and so adding 4 degrees of error at the "null" point where tangency error should be 0.

The responses were interesting: at first participants chose "File 1" as the one with the zenith angle correction but later commenters chose "File #2". File #1 is the one that's corrected to compensate for the 4 degree error.

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Album Reviews
On Toy, David Bowie Energetically Revisits His Distant Past
Malachi Lui  |  Mar 16, 2022  |  8 comments
Following a snooze-inducing headlining performance (based on the recording) at the 2000 Glastonbury Festival, David Bowie and his band (guitarist Earl Slick, bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, pianist Mike Garson, drummer Sterling Campbell, and musician/producer Mark Plati) entered New York’s Sear Sound to re-record his early, mostly pre-Space Oddity catalog highlights. Bowie intended the quickly recorded result, Toy, as a surprise release, though in 2001 the financially struggling Virgin/EMI balked at the idea and eventually rejected the album altogether. For the following year’s Heathen, Bowie signed to Columbia and left uncertain Toy’s future. Leaked in 2011 and recently officially released by his estate and Parlophone, Toy now has its proper place in his studio discography. Yet, is it worthy of its legendary—and in some circles, almost mythical—status?

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News
Mulberry Street Symphony Awaits Re-Press, Will Be Available In United States
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 15, 2022  |  2 comments
Mulberry Street Symphony awaits a re-press. Once it's in stock, Cowbell (see comment section) says it can ship to the United States.

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Analog Gear NewsNews
Luxman LMC-5 MC Is The Company's First New Cartridge In 40 Years
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 10, 2022  |  46 comments
Luxman today announced the introduction of the new LMC-5 moving coil the company's first new cartridge in 40 years.

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Set-Up Tips
Zenith Angle: The Final Cartridge Set-up Frontier?
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 09, 2022  |  46 comments
First up: identifying the two John Lee Hooker files in The Tapestry reveal: "File 1" is the original pressing. "File 2" is the Analogue Productions 2010 double 45 reissue. Some preferred the reissue, clearly cut from a secondary source, lured by the added bass and top end intended to distract from the soft guitar transients, vocal cloud and lack of top end air and having locked into that, those listeners found the original pressing "bright" and "bass shy". It's a tricky business but while the original may have had the bottom cut slightly it is otherwise massively superior and over time far more listenable. Now on to a really interesting and important test!

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News
Finally! The Contemporary Records Acoustic Sounds Series Reaches the Presses
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 08, 2022  |  21 comments
The extensive, long planned and then delayed Contemporary Records-Acoustic Sounds series finally drops beginning May 13th with six key titles mastered AAA by Bernie Grundman, pressed at QRP on 180g vinyl and presented in Stoughton Old Style Tip On jackets. The series is a continuation of Craft Records' 70th Anniversary Contemporary Records Celebration.

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Album Reviews
Anders Koppel's Mulberry Street Symphony  Is Made For These Times
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 07, 2022  |  9 comments
Danish immigrant Jacob Riis’s photojournalism book “How the Other Half Lives” published in 1890 documents the squalid life in New York City’s teeming Lower East Side slums crowded with Irish, Jewish, Italian, Chinese and other newly arrived immigrants. The muckraking book made an immediate impression upon New York’s upper classes and led to many reforms.

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