Michael Fremer

The irony wasn't lost on Stones fans when ABKCO and Universal simultaneously issued Rolling Stones vinyl box sets back in 2010. ABKCO, which owned the group's British Decca-era catalog, hired legendary mastering engineer Bob Ludwig to handle mastering of its catalog while Universal, which controlled the group's own label, released a box set with no mastering credits.

(Gothenburg Sweden, 6-25-2018)— SAT (Swedish Analog Technologies) last week announced that it's begun shipping its next-gen series of pickup arms, the LM-09 and LM-12 and the CF1-09 and CF1-12, both of which went into production last April.

Jonathan Carr (above) sat on the edge of an Ekornes Stressless chair, polishing the blades of my system's AC cords with an almost sexual fervor and intensity. Carr, the talented designer of the Lyra phono cartridges, was on a mission. First we played "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio," from an original white-label pressing of Joni Mitchell's For the Roses (Asylum/Atlantic SD 5057). After the polishing—almost an hour's worth—we played it again. The difference was not subtle but enormous—as if we'd changed an expensive component. The increase in clarity and focus and the diminution of grunge and hash were easily noticeable, as was the overall richer, warmer sound.

Last spring while in San Francisco to speak to the S.F. Audio Society, AnalogPlanet editor Michael Fremer had the opportunity to speak on camera with Siegfried Linkwitz, whose name will be familiar to many audio enthusiasts as the co-inventor of the Linkwitz-Riley crossover network.