Features

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."

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.

Permission granted to take a short walk through parts of Amoeba Music in Hollywood with the GoPro camera on my head.

It's "that" time of year so here are analogplanet's stocking stuffers in three different price categories.

In Part 2 of our VPI Industries factory tour we see, among other things, the inner workings of VPI's radical new direct drive motor.

Here's your opportunity to tour Electric Mastering's new vintage cutting chain with "master of the cutting lathe" analog legend Sean Davies.

After the Munich High End Show I went to the U.K. on some other business and while there paid a visit to Electric Mastering, the parent company of reissue label The Electric Recording Co.