Analog Corner

"Why would anyone pay $74,000 for a turntable?" sputtered Peter Panarisi. Aston Martin's product press officer was showing me around the company's V12 Vanquish production facility in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, England. "What does it have to do," he continued incredulously, while showing me how they hand-build the ca $240,000, 460bhp, 190mph two-seater, "but turn the record?"

I'll spare you my retort...

Back in the mid-1980s, how many guys do you figure were hauling milk crates full of used LPs around America, from record fair to record fair? Hundreds? Thousands? How many are still doing it now?

That's how and when Acoustic Sounds' Chad Kassem got started—in, of all places, Salina, Kansas...

The day was more unsettling than I'd imagined. Flying the evening of 9/11 to attend Hi-Fi News's 2002 Hi-Fi Show and AV Expo produced more relief than anxiety, though I did have a Rod Serling moment when my room at the Heathrow Le Meridien turned out to be 5911.

Jonathan Carr (above) sat on the edge of an Ekornes Stressless chair, polishing the blades of my system's AC cords with an almost sexual fervor and intensity. Carr, the talented designer of the Lyra phono cartridges, was on a mission. First we played "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio," from an original white-label pressing of Joni Mitchell's For the Roses (Asylum/Atlantic SD 5057). After the polishing—almost an hour's worth—we played it again. The difference was not subtle but enormous—as if we'd changed an expensive component. The increase in clarity and focus and the diminution of grunge and hash were easily noticeable, as was the overall richer, warmer sound.

"I was worried about doing it," Speakers Corner's Kai Seemann told me. "If it didn't sell, I'd be out a substantial sum, but I took a chance and pressed 1500 copies, figuring if I did manage to sell them all, it would probably take three years."

Seemann was talking about Ella Fitzgerald's legendary 1950s Gershwin Song Book boxed set, originally released on Verve, which his reissue label had meticulously reproduced on vinyl. "Seven months later, and they're all gone!" he exclaimed wonderingly.

A recent bid on eBay won me mono copies of Nat King Cole's Love is the Thing and Nat King Cole Sings/George Shearing Plays. The descriptions said that the records had some "marks" but that they "shouldn't affect play." The rest of the wording led me to suspect that the seller knew nothing about vinyl, but since the winning bid was $3.15 ($5.65 with shipping), why not take a chance? I have some mono records that look unsalvageable but play fine—especially using the mono Helikon cartridge.