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News
Abbey Road Mastering Engineer Miles Showell Comments on Apollo/Transco Disaster
Malachi Lui  |  Feb 08, 2020  |  51 comments
Firemen work to douse fire. (Photo:Robert Bauer-ribsfitmedia)
On Thursday morning (February 6), the Banning, CA building housing Apollo/Transco Masters’ factory and storage space burned. By far the biggest of the world’s two lacquer master disc manufacturers, most of the world’s vinyl mastering facilities (especially smaller ones) relied upon Apollo/Transco blanks, as well as their cutting styli for Westrex cutting heads. Ruled a total loss, 82 firefighters battled the blaze’s toxic fumes; thankfully, there were no injuries (Banning is located in the Southern California desert, approximately 2.5 hours away from Los Angeles).
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News
MAJOR VINYL PRODUCTION CATASTROPHE AS APOLLO/TRANSCO LACQUERS BURNS!
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 06, 2020  |  35 comments
Sadly this is not April 1st, and this is not a joke. The Banning CA facility housing Apollo/Transco lacquer manufacturing burned today and is apparently a total loss. More than 80 firefighters fought the dangerous chemical-laden fire. I haven't had a chance to get into the story details but hopefully no one was seriously injured in the blaze.

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AAA VinylNews
True Mono AAA Way Out West  From ERC Limited to 300 Copies Just Announced and Not Yet Sold Out! (Updated)
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 05, 2020  |  51 comments
The Electric Recording Company just announced a limited to 300 copies edition of Sonny Rollins Way Out West (ERC 053M).

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Playback Accessory Reviews
StylusTimer is a Handy Cartridge Odometer
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 04, 2020  |  45 comments
While there's some debate about how many hours a phonograph cartridge stylus lasts and how often it should be replaced, one thing's for sure: not keeping track of your cartridge's "mileage" makes difficult knowing when the time's come for a re-tip or replacement.

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News
Vinyl Alliance Founding Members Elect First Executive Board
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 04, 2020  |  4 comments

Vienna, February 04, 2020 – The Vinyl Alliance a new industry organization dedicated to promoting awareness of vinyl records and composed of manufacturers, dealers, record companies and other interested parties announce that during their Founders Meeting in New York City on 22 January 2020 the new Executive Board members were elected:

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Turntable Reviews
Fluance’s RT85 Turntable Is a High Value Proposition
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 31, 2020  |  32 comments
Canada-based Fluance’s $250 RT81 reviewed here a little over three years ago was a pleasant surprise. It offered reasonably good mechanical and sonic performance as well as useful convenience features and attractive looks. Fluance’s new RT85 Reference turntable doubles the cost to $499.95. Is it twice as good?

It doesn’t take a turntable forensic genius to note that the RT81 is manufactured at the same Taiwanese factory that produced the $1099.99 Thorens TD 402 Direct Drive Semi-Automatic turntable that back in November took a review beating here.

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Phono Preamp Reviews
Liberty Audio’s $1995 B2B-1 Phono Preamp Is Sneakily Stunning
Malachi Lui  |  Jan 30, 2020  |  5 comments
Last year Peter Noerbaek offered me a review sample of the Liberty Audio B2B-1 phono preamp. “I’m happy with my MoFi UltraPhono,” I told MF, “but I’ll try the B2B-1.” Not necessarily thinking it would at first make a significant difference in my system, I soon instead found that in terms of imaging, punch, dynamics, and sonic cleanliness, it greatly enhanced my hi-fi’s performance.

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News
Win Two Free Tickets to See Gwenifer Raymond February 19th
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 30, 2020  |  3 comments
Welsh multi-instrumentalist Gwenifer Raymond makes her London debut February 19th at Shacklewell Arms. If you live nearby or are in the mood to travel, thanks to the show promoter, analogPlanet is giving away two tickets.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Jerome Sabbagh & Greg Tuohey's Slow Simmering No Filter Isn't Brickwall Filtered!
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 29, 2020  |  7 comments
Tenor saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh's follow up to The Turn, a duet album with guitarist Greg Tuohey arrived quite some time ago. I've been playing it repeatedly trying to get a grasp.

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Features
Michael Fremer’s Top 50 Albums of the 2010’s (+Honorable Mentions & Playlists)
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 24, 2020  |  51 comments
Frankly speaking, I don’t like lists. It’s bad enough to pick 5 best albums over a year, never mind 50 over a decade. It’s worse to have to almost arbitrarily list them in descending order, but that’s the self-assignment so that’s what I’ve done. While I was already Social Security eligible a decade ago, many people found my behavior to be that of a 4 year old, so perhaps that’s why my pal Malachi, the site’s other “regular writer” and I get along so well. Plus, while I won’t repeat his political comments, we are on the same page there too, though he’s probably slightly to my left. Clearly we diverge somewhat musically, though both of us agree on the #1 record of the past decade and David Bowie is our favorite artist. He’s encouraged me to listen to Kanye and Tyler, the Creator as well as Frank Ocean and I’m glad he did. I turned him on to Gil Evans and he’s glad I did.

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