Playback Accessory Reviews

A reader who manufacturers this Reliable Corporation Uberlight™ Flex Task Light sent a few for me to check out. One night he took one home and placed it next to his turntable. He found, among other things, that it let him easily read the inner groove area information on his records and he thought that perhaps I'd also find it useful.

From the folks who gave us the Stable 33.33 transit platter—a device you might only realize you need after getting one—comes the Vinyl Center Hole Reamer. If you've ever had a too small record center hole—and who hasn't— but were afraid to ream it out with a round file fearing an uneven ream resulting in too big a hole, this device is the solution.

Mind-Pop Revolution's Presslift is a complex, approximately 1.6 pound machined brass record stabilizer that is also designed to act as an end of side tone arm lift.

The longevity of Denon's 103 cartridge series, first introduced in the 1960's and still in production speaks to the design's enduring popularity. The design's weak point is its flimsy mounting system. As my colleague Art Dudley put it in the December 2007 issue of Stereophile: "The most common complaint about the DL-103 is also the truest: Its good motor is compromised by a too-flimsy mounting arrangement, with open-edge bolt channels that prevent the cartridge from being rigidly fastened to a head shell."

At CES 2018 optical cartridge maker DS Audio introduced the ST-50 an elegant-looking "pad" type stylus cleaner that uses a transparent urethane pad developed for semi-conductor "clean room" air scrubbing.

The Sugarcube from Musical Surroundings, shown at CES 2016 in prototypical form represents a brand new product category in the vinyl world according to SweetVinyl's Leo Hoarty and he's not spewing hyperbole.

Electronic stylus cleaners have been around for decades. Though very popular in the 1970s and 1980s, these vibrating devices rapidly fell out of favor for a very good reason.