Features

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Features
Vanatoo’s Transparent Zero Speakers Offer Great Convenience & Satisfying Desktop Sound
Malachi Lui  |  Jul 10, 2019  |  3 comments
Today’s budding audiophiles have more introductory options than ever. Available and (fairly) affordable are introductory turntable systems, great headphones, headphone amps, DACs, and… desktop speakers?

Enter the minds of Vanatoo, the company founded by experienced audio enthusiasts Gary Gesellchen and Rick Kernen. Gesellchen’s background includes decades of speaker designing and building, while Kernen has worked for over 35 years in micro-processing. Their speakers are aimed at those who “care about music, want something that sounds good, and also understand that they shouldn’t be forced to sacrifice convenience for quality,” Gesellchen told me in an email exchange. Vanatoo’s speakers though intended for desktops, can also be used in home theaters as well as in full room stereo systems.

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FeaturesVinyl Reports
Vinyl Reports: Burial + Four Tet + Thom Yorke, James Ferraro, Yung Lean, & Actress
Malachi Lui  |  Aug 24, 2021  |  9 comments
(Vinyl Reports is an AnalogPlanet feature aiming to create a definitive vinyl LP guide. Here, we talk about sound quality, LP packaging, music, and the overarching vinyl experience.)

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Vinyl Reports: Don't Believe the Hype
Malachi Lui  |  Apr 09, 2020  |  120 comments
(“Hype: to promote or publicize something intensively, often exaggerating its importance or benefits.” We all succumb to hype, either from others’ high recommendations or our own excitement and anticipation. Once something falls short of those expectations, we rush to denounce it as “overhyped;” not necessarily bad, but underwhelming for however much we expect. Today’s Vinyl Reports feature centers around such overhyped records.)

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Features
Vinyl Reports: Gil Scott-Heron, PJ Harvey, Boards Of Canada, & Dexter Gordon
Malachi Lui  |  Oct 30, 2021  |  26 comments
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Features
Vinyl Reports: Old & New, Good & Bad
Malachi Lui  |  Feb 18, 2020  |  66 comments
(Vinyl Reports is a new AnalogPlanet feature intended to create a definitive guide to vinyl LPs. Here, we’ll provide sound quality, LP packaging, notes about the overarching vinyl experience, and sometimes music reviews. Today’s vague theme is what this recurring feature is generally about: records new and old, good and bad. Let the fun begin…)

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Vinyl Reports: Real Life Record Shopping Returns!
Malachi Lui  |  Jun 28, 2020  |  36 comments
(Vinyl Reports is an AnalogPlanet feature aiming to create a definitive guide to vinyl LPs. Here, we talk about sound quality, LP packaging, music, and the overarching vinyl experience.)

As the world moves to reopen, record stores are slowly allowing customers back in. Here in Portland, OR, Music Millennium recently held a week of appointment-only personal shopping experiences (charitable donation necessary), then subsequently reopened with a 10 person limit and new safety measures. I shopped during the “be the only customer inside!” period and reviewed below are four recent acquisitions.

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Vinyl Reports: Susumu Hirasawa & Fishmans
Malachi Lui  |  Dec 19, 2021  |  4 comments
(Vinyl Reports is an AnalogPlanet feature aiming to create a definitive guide to vinyl LPs. Here, we talk about sound quality, LP packaging, music, and the overarching vinyl experience, this time in a shorter format than usual.)

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Vinyl Reports: Tales From The Used Bin!
Malachi Lui  |  Nov 28, 2021  |  14 comments
(Vinyl Reports is an AnalogPlanet feature aiming to create a definitive guide to vinyl LPs. Here, we talk about sound quality, LP packaging, music, and the overarching vinyl experience.)

Real-life used record shopping is as joyful as it is potentially frustrating. These days, I mostly find used record bins of previous decades’ detritus; however, a recent browse through Asheville’s Harvest Records yielded luck. Following are reviews of three of those finds, plus one used LP ordered on Discogs.

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FeaturesVinyl Reports
Vinyl Reports: Yung Lean and Charli XCX
Malachi Lui  |  Sep 30, 2020  |  31 comments
(Vinyl Reports is an AnalogPlanet feature aiming to create a definitive guide to vinyl LPs. Here, we talk about sound quality, LP packaging, music, and the overarching vinyl experience.)

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FeaturesShort Cuts
Vinyl Review Explosion: Clairo, Mariya Takeuchi, Sault, & Dean Blunt
Malachi Lui  |  Nov 30, 2021  |  4 comments
(Review Explosion, curated by contributing editor Malachi Lui, is AnalogPlanet’s guide to notable recent releases and reissues. It focuses on the previous few months’ new releases for which we don’t have time or energy to cover more extensively.)

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Vinyl Review Explosion: David Bowie; Tyler, The Creator; The Weeknd; Lola Kirke
Malachi Lui  |  May 31, 2022  |  6 comments
(Review Explosion, curated by contributing editor Malachi Lui, is a guide to notable recent releases and reissues. It focuses on the previous few months' new releases for which we don't have time or energy to cover more extensively.)
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FeaturesShort Cuts
Vinyl Review Explosion: The Doors, The Mars Volta, Outkast, & Wu-Tang Clan
Malachi Lui  |  Oct 03, 2021  |  27 comments
(Review Explosion is a recurring AnalogPlanet feature covering recent releases for which we either don't have sufficient time to fully explore, or that are not worthy of it. Curated by AnalogPlanet contributing editor Malachi Lui, Review Explosion focuses on the previous few months' new releases. This particular Review Explosion discusses four Vinyl Me, Please releases from June-September 2021.)

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Features
Warner Brothers/Reprise: The Records and the Sound
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 31, 2006  |  0 comments

The Labels

The original Warner Brothers label was gold colored with “Vitaphonic Long Play” on the bottom, separated by “Stereo” in red letters, boxed in black. In small red letter above that it reads “Warning:reproduce only with stereophonic cartridge and stylus. Pressure not to exceed 6 grams” (mono releases were originally gold as well, but were later changed to grey). This label continued into the mid-sixties. Original pressings of records like 1962’s Peter Paul and Mary (WS 1449) feature that label, as does Peter Paul and Mary’s Moving album (WS 1473) from 1963.
Promo copies were black and white

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Features
We'll Get It Wrong In The Mix
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 31, 2010  |  0 comments
I wrote this article, originally published in Music Connection magazine, back in 1985 after becoming increasingly disgusted with and alarmed by the deteriorating sonic quality of new releases from familiar artists. Little did I realize then that 1985 was a 'golden age' of good sound compared to what most pop and rock recordings sound like in 2008! I remain grateful to editor Bud Scoppa for giving me the platform to spout a then unpopular view in a magazine read by Los Angeles engineers, artists and music business executives.

When The Absolute Sound's Harry Pearson announced he was looking for a new popular music editor, I applied for the job by sending him this article. He liked it enough to give me the job. That gave me an ideal platform from which to advocate saving the vinyl record and extolling its unique set of virtues, sonic and otherwise.

Watching the LP section at the huge Tower Records on Sunset shrink by the week, never did I imagine that in 2008 the LP would be back and Tower would be gone. —Michael Fremer, 1/15/08

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Features
Who's Cutting Those Lacquers? Part 1
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 30, 2004  |  0 comments

Note: due to current website technical limitations, accompanying photos can be found in the “gallery” section, accessible near the bottom of the home page.

Last fall, I was invited to visit the Hornslet speaker cabinet manufacturing facility in Denmark. The company builds high-tech boxes for Audio Physic, Linn, Dali, Naim, Aerial Acoustics and a number of other companies. Take a look at a map and you’ll see that Denmark is but a short distance from both Hamburg and Hanover, Germany, home of the big Universal Music tape vault and the Emil Berliner studio. I’ll be in the neighborhood, I figured, so why not swing by on my way to Denmark?

I’d made contact with Gunther Buskies, senior product manager in charge of vinyl reissues at Universal, who worked out of Hamburg, and he offered to drive me to Hanover so I could visit the facility and talk with veteran LP mastering engineer Willem Makkee. Makkee cuts the Universal LP reissues as well as the Warner Music (Europe) series, and most of the Speakers Corner vinyl.

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