LATEST ADDITIONS

When I came upon Giuseppe Viola's handiwork at the 2000 Top Audio Show in Milan, Italy, I said to myself, "Here's a guy with a fabulous machine shop and too much time on his hands." Most designers are satisfied to introduce a turntable. Not Viola. At Top Audio, under the V.Y.G.E.R. name, he introduced a whole line of hand-built, air-bearing tonearms and turntables. When I met the gregarious Giuseppe (aka "Pino") later that day, he came across as a most enthusiastic, gnome-like character, eager to demonstrate his gleaming creations and explain their workings.

Viola had much to be proud of: He'd developed a massive, true air-bearing platter—one that "floated," both radially and axially, on a thin film of air . . .

Felt mats have never been known for audiophile-grade sound, but how do they fare against each other? Can you hear differences among them?

In a July 2nd story, we announced four new costly arms from SAT(Swedish Analog Technologies): two models each available in 9" and 12" versions. The least expensive of the four, the LM-09 was reviewed in the just shipped October, 2018 Stereophile.

I first spotted this chrome-trimmed beauty in the UK a few years ago, when Avid still had no American importer. The opportunity to review it finally arose last January, right after CES, and while I still had the SME 30/2 turntable. The $10,000 Avid Acutus is every bit as deserving of a full review as the 30/2—I am reviewing it in "Analog Corner" only because this is my best chance of getting a review into print so soon after my March 2003 report on the SME.