LATEST ADDITIONS

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 28, 2014  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  5 comments
Made in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, USA, using where possible American parts, designer Bill Hutchins’ LKV Research Phono 2-SB has the kind of Japanese corporate name that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 27, 2014  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  53 comments
To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Blue Note Records, the label will be reissuing in 2014 100 classic Blue Notes on 180 gram vinyl beginning with five on March 25th: Art Blakey's Free For All, Coltrane's Blue Train, Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch, Wayne Shorter's Speak No Evil and Larry Young's Unity.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 25, 2014  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  8 comments
You say you don't want to spend hundreds on an original LSC-1806 "Living Stereo" or LSC-1817 or $1500 on the Soria box set LDS-6065? That's understandable. By the numbers: LSC-1806 is the 1954 stereo spectacular "Also Sprach Zarathustra" with Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony. Of course RCA couldn't issue it on vinyl in 1954, though it did issue it in stereo on reel to reel tape well before the vinyl, which didn't get released until 1960.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 24, 2014  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  19 comments
We screwed up publishing the "records in the dumpster in front of Academy Records" news item. Yes, we confirmed that the records were there but that's not the real story according to Academy owner Mike Davis who was rightfully pissed. We apologize profusely for our error.
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 23, 2014  |  19 comments
You can argue over who is the greatest rock singer, but there's no arguing whether or not Paul Rodgers would be high up on every list compiled by music critics and fellow musicians alike. Rolling Stone placed him at #55 in its list of greatest singers male and female all rock era genres but I'm more inclined to side with John Mellencamp who in 1991 called Rodgers "the greatest rock singer ever".

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 22, 2014  |  16 comments
The first stereo release from The Electric Recording Company is a reissue of Columbia SAX 2386 first released in 1959 . It is a much sought after record as the used prices for clean copies are nothing short of astronomical— $3000 and up. Kogan was born in the Ukraine in 1924 and died of a heart attack in 1982 at age 58 a few days after playing this piece in Vienna. His western discography isn't extensive and the few he recorded for the Columbia division of EMI are the most collectible.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 20, 2014  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  6 comments
I reviewed the Transfiguration Phoenix for Stereophile five years ago. This is not really the same cartridge though it retains the same name. In 2012 the low output moving coil cartridge was updated to include larger gauge pure silver coil wire wound on the square permalloy core used on the now discontinued top of the line Transfiguration Orpheus. The revised Phoenix also shares the Orpheus's damping system and uses a variant of the Orpheus's yoke less, double ring magnet technology featuring a powerful neodymium ring in the rear and a samarium cobalt one in front.
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 20, 2014  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  17 comments
I was lucky enough to see the St. Petersburg Philharmonic play Carnegie Hall recently. They did Prokofiev's Violin Concerto with Julia Fischer, who played wonderfully and then Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony. We get great seats courtesy Joe Kubala of Kubala-Sosna cables who had a scheduling conflict and kindly thought of me. We had to drive through a snow storm to get there but it was well worth it.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 19, 2014  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969  |  21 comments
How did this one get neglected? Take a look at the photo supplied by WAM engineering. It shows a stylus in a cantilever. Notice it has been affixed into the cantilever at an angle instead of being parallel to the cantilever. If you use the cantilever to set the zenith angle on this cartridge, which is what I and everyone else recommends, the stylus will not be tangential to the grooves at the null points though it might accidentally be so somewhere else.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 11, 2014  |  52 comments
Was Mel Tormé a jazz or cabaret singer? Or was he both? Some music "purists" actually argue such things. Mr. Tormé's recorded vocal and interpretive talents demonstrate his ability to work both rooms. He wasn't worried about being pigeonholed one way or the other. Though rhythmically adept and an excellent scat singer, the “Velvet Fog” could also croon.

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