It's a bit late in the day to write a review of the music on this album, which concerns itself mostly with how the music business chews up musicians with dreams and spits them out—not that Syd Barrett, the subject of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" was done in by the business.

Howard Stern Show producer Gary Dell'Abate and Stern show staffer John Hein stopped by today with a video crew of eleven.

NIck Lowe has aged more than gracefully—he's never been better melodically and especially lyrically. On his latest release, issued by Yep Roc on a "wide groove 45rpm" record, Lowe waxes both melancholic and bemused about a break up.

Register to win a VPI Traveler Turntable and Dynavector 20x2H Cartridge Combo From Music Direct (MSRP $2,150) we are giving away.

Analog Planet and Music Direct are proud to offer you a chance to win the brand-new turntable from VPI, The Traveler. This turntable is dedicated to the memory of VPI co-founder Sheila Weisfeld, and it’s an amazing American-made work-of-art. Combine this turntable with the great high-output moving-coil Dynavector 20x2H phono cartridge and you are in for such a treat. We dare to say that no digital front end can compete. But hey, we’re analog lovers!

[This sweepstakes is now closed.]

The stylus rake angle is the angle the stylus’s “contact patch” makes to the record surface. If you have a relatively inexpensive cartridge with a spherical stylus you don’t have to worry about SRA because the contact area remains the same regardless of arm height. On the other hand, elliptical styli along with the more severe “line contact,” Shibata, Geiger, Ortofon and other long, narrow contact patch “cutting edge” (poor metaphor!) stylus profiles require careful SRA setting to perform as designed.

Dear Michael,

I grew up in the golden age of high-fi and began my hardware journey with a Fisher X202B amplifier, AR2a speakers, and an Empire 398 turntable followed by the addition of a McIntosh MR-67 tuner. Of course, I've been a subscriber to High Fidelity, Stereo Review, their successors, The Absolute Sound and Stereophile going back to the 60's.

Joni Mitchell’s decision to stay in New York City instead of traveling 300 miles north to attend a three-day rock festival in August of 1969 was probably a good idea. If she had actually seen Woodstock for herself, she may not have created such an intense and idealized song by the same name.

I was in Colorado last month doing in-store appearances at audio dealer ListenUp. Events were held at their stores in Denver, Boulder and Colorado Springs.

Stereophile is pleased to announce the availability of the free 2012 Recommended Components iPad app.

Available Now
The app is available right now for free download to your iPad in the iTunes store. In iTunes, search for "Stereophile Recommended Components" or follow this link to the iTunes store from your web browser.

This app includes all current Recomended Components as listed in the recent issue of Stereophile as well as additional ratings and listings that could not fit in the print version. There are over 700 component rankings in all and the app is compatible with all iPad hardware versions including retina displays.

The two basic turntable design approaches are low mass that quickly evacuates energy and high mass that sinks and damps energy. Both designs seek to avoid reflecting back into the system the considerable energy produced at the stylus/groove interface.