LATEST ADDITIONS

I literally dropped everything when Rega's new Planar 25 turntable arrived a few weeks ago. I'd heard the 'table compared with the Planar 3 at designer Roy Gandy's house when I visited Rega last fall—see "Analog Corner" in the January '99 Stereophile—and was anxious to audition it in my own system and tell you what I heard.

I've chosen to limit coverage to Cap Fest analog gear, but there was plenty of good sound at the show and plenty of awful sound too. I'll skip the awful and the great, making an exception for the Odyssey Audio room. The gentleman responsible, Klaus Bunge, is an industry veteran I've known for decades. He helped establish in America, the high price, high performance Symphonic Line brand.

Highwater Sound's Jeff Catalano, TW Acustic's American importer debuted a new triple motor module (circa $4500) for the Raven AC turntable similar in concept to the motor system in the company's flagship Black Knight 'table.

College Point, NY (Queens, L.I.) based Miracle Audio demoed its Phonatic phono preamp priced from $4500 for the MM version to $6200 for the "xr" version featuring 70dB gain, an enhanced power supply, Vishay Z-foil R's and Clarity MR caps.