Michael Fremer

Back in 2000, when Lyra introduced the Helikon moving-coil cartridge, which replaced the then six-year-old Clavis D.C., the company inexplicably retained the Clavis D.C.'s retail price of $2000. This was inexplicable because the Helikon's revolutionary design was new from the ground up, and because audiophiles—like most, if not all, consumers—perceive price to be a reflection of quality and performance.

This new double LP pairs Será una Noche with the appropriately titled follow up Segunda two of M A Recordings’ most popular releases, first on CD then on XRCD and later available as high resolution files. Será una Noche was previously released on vinyl and reviewed on musicangle.com. Naturally vinyl cut from high resolution digital sounds better than the same files decimated to 16 bits. Todd Garfinkle’s simply miked, spacious-sounding 24 bit recordings have earned him a following among audiophiles, even though most of the exotic “world” music Garfinkle prefers to record is anything but traditional audiophile fare.

Last Spring when analogPlanet editor Michael Fremer visited analogPlanet contributing editor Malachi Lui at his Portland, Oregon home, the two visited record stores, interviewed Discogs founder Kevin Lewandowski, shot a not yet published video at Cascade Record Pressing and toured Woodblock Chocolate Manufactory, which as you will see resembles in some ways a record pressing plant.

The M2tech Joplin, one of the A/D converters profiled in the recent A/D converter "shoot out" has had a "make over".