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FeaturesShow Reports
Toronto Audiofest Show Report, Part 2: Oracle Audio and Stable 33.33
Shanon McKellar  |  Nov 01, 2024  |  2 comments

We’re back onsite at Toronto Audiofest, which was held during the weekend of October 18-20, 2024. Read Part 2 of Shanon McKellar’s TAF show report to see her firsthand experience with the turntable setups from two stellar companies, Oracle Audio Technologies and Stable 33.33. . .

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FeaturesShow Reports
Toronto Audiofest Show Report, Part 3, a.k.a. The Dénouement: Turntables Galore From Thorens, TW-Acustic, Pure Fidelity, Well Tempered Lab, and More!
Shanon McKellar  |  Nov 05, 2024  |  1 comments

We’ve officially entered into the homestretch of our in-depth three-part Toronto Audiofest 2024 show report. Read Shanon McKellar’s final TAF 2024 installment to see what she heard with turntables from the likes of Thorens, TW-Acustic, Pure Fidelity, Well Tempered Lab, and more. . .

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Features
Tour Electric Mastering's New Vintage Cutting Chain With Analog Legend Sean Davies
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 02, 2013  |  9 comments
Here's your opportunity to tour Electric Mastering's new vintage cutting chain with "master of the cutting lathe" analog legend Sean Davies.
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Features
Tour Music Direct's Chicago Warehouse With MD's Josh Bizar
Michael Fremer  |  May 22, 2018  |  55 comments
Before the start of last April's AXPONA show at the Schaumburg Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center AnalogPlanet editor Michael Fremer and Music Direct's Vice President Josh Bizar drove to Chicago and to the home of online vinyl and audio dealer Music Direct.

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Features
Tour Pro-Ject's New Logistics Center and New Factory
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 28, 2017  |  10 comments
After last May's High End Munich show, Pro-Ject founder and CEO Heinz Lichtenegger invited international distributors attending the show to visit the company's brand new high-tech "green" logistics center outside of Vienna. They also toured the original Pro-Ject factory in Litovel, Czech Republic as well as the brand new factory down the road.

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Features
Tour SME With New CEO Stuart McNeilis
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 12, 2017  |  15 comments
Last year, Cadence Group purchased from the Robertson-Aikman family venerable SME, Ltd., appointing as its new CEO Stuart McNeilis. Mr. McNeilis, a veteran of the the aerospace industry, is attempting to maintain SME's exceptional traditional manufacturing quality while moving the company (gently) into the 21st century.

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Features
Tour The Archive of Contemporary Music's 3 Million Record Collection
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 03, 2020  |  10 comments
Bob George The Archive of Contemporary Music's founder and director was scheduled to participate in a "Making Vinyl Hollywood" panel discussion I moderated last fall, so to prep for it I called Mr. George and proposed a visit to the Archive during which we'd discuss his participation. As you'll see in the video, by the time I visited last September I'd forgotten the reason for the visit!

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Features
Tour the SME Factory
Michael Fremer  |  May 20, 2014  |  20 comments
Following Munich's High End 2014 show I flew to the U.K. where I met up with Chad Kassem and Chad Stelly of Acoustic Sounds, the new American SME distributor. On Monday, May 19th we took a train to Shoreham by Sea to visit turntable and tonearm manufacturer SME.

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Features
Tour the Tesla Tube Factory
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 28, 2014  |  3 comments
Back in 1999 I reviewed in Stereophile the KR Audio VT 8000 monoblock vacuum tube amplifier. I wrote in the review: "Virtually every part in the amplifier is custom-made in-house or sourced from associated facilities, including the metal fabrication, the transformers, and the circuit boards. The internal wiring is Swiss in origin. And, of course, the vacuum transducers themselves are made in-house by hand, and that includes all of the tiny internal components, which are stamped out one at a time by hand on dies custom-machined in-house. Even the glass for the tubes is turned and formed by hand. If I hadn't seen all of this with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it."

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Features
Traversing The Phil Zone: The Late, Great Grateful Dead Co-Founder Phil Lesh’s Brilliant Music Legacy Lives On, and We Have Four Dead Experts Here to Pick Their Favorite Phil Moments on Vinyl
Mark Smotroff  |  Nov 07, 2024  |  1 comments

Phil Lesh, co-founding bassist of the Grateful Dead, sadly passed away at age 84 on October 25, 2024, and he will be remembered by millions of fans for the brilliant, inspiring music he made over the course of his incredible career. AP editor Mike Mettler asked our resident Deadhead Mark Smotroff to put together a proper tribute, and he enlisted three other fellow Dead experts to help bid Phil a proper fare thee well. Read on to see what their respective choices are for Lesh’s finest moments on vinyl. . .

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FeaturesTurntable Reviews
Turntable Buyer’s Guide: Five (or Six, or Seven) Things to Look for When You’re in the Market for a New Turntable, Regardless of Price
Ken Micallef  |  Sep 30, 2024  |  8 comments

With the vinyl resurgence, we live in a golden age of well-made turntables, many of them at prices affordable to one and all. With that in mind, we wanted to present you with a buying guide of sorts that takes into account all types, interests, and wallets, covering a wide-swath price range starting around a baseline of $650 on up to a champagne level of around $30,000. Read Ken Micallef’s in-depth turntable primer, which should be able to help you find a truly great table that fits your current needs, handles your upgrade aspirations, and/or addresses all the essential parameters of solid design and performance for practically any price. . .

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Features
Two Months With Widex’s Moment 440 mRIC R D Hearing Aids
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 02, 2020  |  36 comments
“You are committing audio reviewer suicide” friends insisted when towards the end of 2018 I told them I was going to review some inexpensive Hearing Aids. Guess what? All of the comments under the review were positive and my reviewer creds are intact. Plus, my now 91 year old mother-in-law can now hear much better since I’d really bought them for her benefit.

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Features
Two Weeks With ZVOX’s VB20 VoiceBud
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 31, 2018  |  11 comments
An elderly gentleman wearing a pair of high tech digital hearing aids accompanied his wife to a kennel club meeting at my home a few years ago. He had little interest in the dog doings upstairs so I invited him downstairs into my listening room. It allowed me to conduct an experiment of sorts. Did he like music? Yes. Had he ever heard or seen a big high performance audio rig? No, he hadn’t. Would he like to hear some music on it? Yes he would: jazz or classical. I obliged, curious to find out what exactly he heard listening through digital hearing aids to a high-resolution audio system. The look on his face told me he was hearing plenty.

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Features
Vanatoo Transparent Zero Loudspeaker Review Follow-Up
Malachi Lui  |  Jul 24, 2019  |  26 comments
In my review of the $359/pair < a href=https://www.analogplanet.com/content/vanatoos-transparent-zero-speakers-offer-great-convenience-satisfying-desktop-sound>Vanatoo Transparent Zero desktop speakers, I noted that while playing Kanye West’s “I Am A God,” the active speaker produced a high-pitched whistle/screech noise. After we published the review, Vanatoo co-founder Gary Gesellchen suggested that instead of the cause being a design flaw, the noise was an artifact of an air leak due to loose screws. He recommended sealing the air passages by taking off the active speaker’s handle and tightening the screws all the way in.

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Features
Vanatoo's Transparent One Powered Compact Loudspeaker
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 04, 2015  |  5 comments
While analogplanet doesn't regularly review loudspeakers, the recent Vanatoo Transparent One speaker giveaway prompted us to have a listen.

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