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Tour The Archive of Contemporary Music's 3 Million Record Collection
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 03, 2020
Bob George The Archive of Contemporary Music's founder and director was scheduled to participate in a "Making Vinyl Hollywood" panel discussion I moderated last fall, so to prep for it I called Mr. George and proposed a visit to the Archive during which we'd discuss his participation. As you'll see in the video, by the time I visited last September I'd forgotten the reason for the visit!

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Features
Tour the SME Factory
Michael Fremer  |  May 20, 2014
Following Munich's High End 2014 show I flew to the U.K. where I met up with Chad Kassem and Chad Stelly of Acoustic Sounds, the new American SME distributor. On Monday, May 19th we took a train to Shoreham by Sea to visit turntable and tonearm manufacturer SME.

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Features
Tour the Tesla Tube Factory
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 28, 2014
Back in 1999 I reviewed in Stereophile the KR Audio VT 8000 monoblock vacuum tube amplifier. I wrote in the review: "Virtually every part in the amplifier is custom-made in-house or sourced from associated facilities, including the metal fabrication, the transformers, and the circuit boards. The internal wiring is Swiss in origin. And, of course, the vacuum transducers themselves are made in-house by hand, and that includes all of the tiny internal components, which are stamped out one at a time by hand on dies custom-machined in-house. Even the glass for the tubes is turned and formed by hand. If I hadn't seen all of this with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it."

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Features
Traversing The Phil Zone: The Late, Great Grateful Dead Co-Founder Phil Lesh’s Brilliant Music Legacy Lives On, and We Have Four Dead Experts Here to Pick Their Favorite Phil Moments on Vinyl
Mark Smotroff  |  Nov 07, 2024

Phil Lesh, co-founding bassist of the Grateful Dead, sadly passed away at age 84 on October 25, 2024, and he will be remembered by millions of fans for the brilliant, inspiring music he made over the course of his incredible career. AP editor Mike Mettler asked our resident Deadhead Mark Smotroff to put together a proper tribute, and he enlisted three other fellow Dead experts to help bid Phil a proper fare thee well. Read on to see what their respective choices are for Lesh’s finest moments on vinyl. . .

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FeaturesTurntable Reviews
Turntable Buyer’s Guide: Five (or Six, or Seven) Things to Look for When You’re in the Market for a New Turntable, Regardless of Price
Ken Micallef  |  Sep 30, 2024

With the vinyl resurgence, we live in a golden age of well-made turntables, many of them at prices affordable to one and all. With that in mind, we wanted to present you with a buying guide of sorts that takes into account all types, interests, and wallets, covering a wide-swath price range starting around a baseline of $650 on up to a champagne level of around $30,000. Read Ken Micallef’s in-depth turntable primer, which should be able to help you find a truly great table that fits your current needs, handles your upgrade aspirations, and/or addresses all the essential parameters of solid design and performance for practically any price. . .

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Features
Two Months With Widex’s Moment 440 mRIC R D Hearing Aids
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 02, 2020
“You are committing audio reviewer suicide” friends insisted when towards the end of 2018 I told them I was going to review some inexpensive Hearing Aids. Guess what? All of the comments under the review were positive and my reviewer creds are intact. Plus, my now 91 year old mother-in-law can now hear much better since I’d really bought them for her benefit.

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Features
Two Weeks With ZVOX’s VB20 VoiceBud
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 31, 2018
An elderly gentleman wearing a pair of high tech digital hearing aids accompanied his wife to a kennel club meeting at my home a few years ago. He had little interest in the dog doings upstairs so I invited him downstairs into my listening room. It allowed me to conduct an experiment of sorts. Did he like music? Yes. Had he ever heard or seen a big high performance audio rig? No, he hadn’t. Would he like to hear some music on it? Yes he would: jazz or classical. I obliged, curious to find out what exactly he heard listening through digital hearing aids to a high-resolution audio system. The look on his face told me he was hearing plenty.

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Features
Unboxing Video: Fluance RT82 Turntable
Mike Mettler, Ken Micallef  |  Mar 19, 2026

Time for another exclusive AP sneak preview! Check out Ken Micallef’s unboxing video of Fluance’s RT82 turntable. . .

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Analog Gear NewsFeatures
Unboxing Video: HumminGuru EZ Vinyl Record Washer
Ken Micallef  |  Jan 12, 2026

Time for another exclusive AP sneak preview! Check out Ken Micallef’s unboxing video of HumminGuru’s cool new EZ Vinyl Record Washer. . .

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Analog Gear NewsFeatures
Unboxing Video: JBL Spinner BT Turntable
Mike Mettler, Ken Micallef  |  Feb 23, 2026

Time for another one of our exclusive AP sneak previews! Check out Ken Micallef’s unboxing video of JBL’s Spinner BT turntable. . .

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Analog Gear NewsFeatures
Unboxing Video: Pear Audio Kid Howard Blue Turntable
Ken Micallef  |  Dec 02, 2025

Time for another sneak preview! Check out Ken Micallef’s unboxing video of Pear Audio’s nifty-new Kid Howard Blue turntable. . .

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Features
Unboxing Video: Soulines tt23 Turntable
Mike Mettler, Ken Micallef  |  May 26, 2026

Time for another exclusive AP sneak preview! Check out Ken Micallef’s unboxing video of Soulines’ tt23 turntable. . .

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FeaturesVinyl Reports
Under Dark Cover: Remembering Ozzy Osbourne Through 15 Choice Cover Versions on Vinyl
Mike Mettler, Mark Smotroff  |  Jul 27, 2025

It’s been a mere 5 days since Ozzy Osbourne passed away at age 76 on July 22, 2025. On that day, we posted an abbreviated tribute to the man and his music on AP, with the added kicker that we’d be posting more about him a little bit later. After AP editor Mike Mettler conferred with main LP reviewer Mark Smotroff, we decided to take a different approach with our tribute. Read on to see our collective choices of 15 great tracks on wax that best honor the legacy of Ozzy and Black Sabbath. . .

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Features
Vanatoo Transparent Zero Loudspeaker Review Follow-Up
Malachi Lui  |  Jul 24, 2019
In my review of the $359/pair < a href=https://www.analogplanet.com/content/vanatoos-transparent-zero-speakers-offer-great-convenience-satisfying-desktop-sound>Vanatoo Transparent Zero desktop speakers, I noted that while playing Kanye West’s “I Am A God,” the active speaker produced a high-pitched whistle/screech noise. After we published the review, Vanatoo co-founder Gary Gesellchen suggested that instead of the cause being a design flaw, the noise was an artifact of an air leak due to loose screws. He recommended sealing the air passages by taking off the active speaker’s handle and tightening the screws all the way in.

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Features
Vanatoo's Transparent One Powered Compact Loudspeaker
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 04, 2015
While analogplanet doesn't regularly review loudspeakers, the recent Vanatoo Transparent One speaker giveaway prompted us to have a listen.

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