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Features
Mikey Skewers Pretentious Audio Journalism!
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 09, 2003  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments
NOTE:

This review has been reprinted in its entirety from The Absolute Shower with not one word censored or deleted. The Absolute Shower is the journal of High End Hygiene and reports its findings on hygienic devices and anti-bacterial sources without fear or favor from any large pharmaceutical conglomerate. Its aquatic evaluations take place in real shower stalls, hence, cleanliness is the measure of reference.

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Features
Dreams Are Still Born In Hollywood
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 31, 2002  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments

Hush Puppies are hip again among celebs. They were sofar out, it was inevitable they'd come back in. Not on my feet or yours- we'd probably just get laughed at- but seen on the right feet? Next day everyone's wearing them. Strange how that works: if everyone's wearing Doc Maartens, what's the boldest thing you could put on your feet instead? Hush Puppies, of course!

I don't know what Van Dyke parks on his feet today, but back in 1967 when he posed for the cover of his epic debut album Song Cycle (Warner Brothers WB 1727) he was wearing Hush Puppies. While many music critics raved about, even respected the album, the public at large wasn't suede by either it, or his shoes. Dreams are stillborn in Hollywood.

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Phono Preamp Reviews
Boulder 2008 phono preamplifier & 2010 preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 14, 2002  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments
It's not every Consumer Electronics Show that someone introduces a $29,000 solid-state phono preamplifier—and I miss it. The 2002 CES was one. My show report in the April issue made it seem as if I'd found out about it there, but the fact is, someone clued me in after I'd returned home. I needed to come clean on that.
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Phono Preamp Reviews
Manley Labs Steelhead phono preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 05, 2001  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  12 comments
The Manley Steelhead tube MM/MC phono preamplifier was first demonstrated at the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show. Nine months later, my long-promised review sample of Eveanna Manley's new baby was delivered. While Ms. Manley may have given birth to the audacious product, it was conceived by the company's chief hi-fi designer, Mitch Margolis.
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Turntable ReviewsTonearm Reviews
Rockport Technologies System III Sirius turntable and tonearm
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 20, 2000  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  2 comments
Andy Payor hurls a briefcase full of engineering and scientific mumbo-jumbo at in an attempt to justify the $73,750 price of the latest and greatest edition of his Rockport Technologies turntable, but really—isn't this all-air-driven design a case of analog overkill? After all, defining a turntable's job seems rather easy: rotate the record at an exact and constant speed, and, for a linear tracker, put the stylus in play across the record surface so that it maintains precise tangency to a radius described across the groove surface. By definition, a pivoted arm can't do that, so the goal there is to minimize the deviation. That's basically it. Right?
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Turntable Reviews
SME 10 turntable
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 15, 2000  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments
What do you want from a 21st-century record-playing device? I hear you: you want one that's compact, well-made, easy to set up, holds its setup, sounds great, and doesn't cost a lot.
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Phono Preamp Reviews
Herron Audio VTSP-1 preamplifier & VTPH-1MC phono preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 19, 2000  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments
This is an era in which products and websites are "launched," but in the past two years Herron Audio has sort of oozed its way into the public ear. With little visible promotion or splashy advertising, Herron is now spoken of within an ever-widening audiophile circle.
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Phono Preamp Reviews
Conrad-Johnson Premier 15 phono preamplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 03, 1999  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments
At a hi-fi show in Germany a few years ago, an audio club had set up a room filled with a dozen well-known turntable/tonearm combos. I recall seeing the Clearaudio/Souther, Immedia RPM-2 and arm, VPI TNT Mk.IV/JMW Memorial, Basis 2500/Graham 2.0, Oracle/Graham, Linn LP12/Ittok, SME Model 20/SME V, and some others I can't remember, including a few not exported from Germany.
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Turntable Reviews
Rega Planar 25 turntable
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 28, 1999  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  0 comments
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.
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Tonearm Reviews
Graham Model 2.0 tonearm
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 26, 1998  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  1 comments
When Bob Graham introduced his 1.5 tonearm at the end of the 1980s, many thought he was dreaming: Vinyl was going the way of the console radio—who would invest two-grand-plus in a tonearm? But there was a method to Graham's madness—he'd designed his arm to be a drop-in replacement for more than 20 years' worth of SME arms, all of which shared the same mounting platform. Perhaps, in his wildest dreams, Graham had already envisioned the current "analog revival"—but even without it, he figured there'd be a robust replacement market, and he was poised to exploit it with what he thought was a superior product.
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