Set-Up Accessory Reviews

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Reliable’s UberLight Frame Is Uber Eye-Opening
Mike Mettler  |  Mar 20, 2025

How many times do we just “make do” in the moment when it comes to handling some of the finer points and little details as we’re tweaking our LP playback systems? More often than not, we default to using flashlights or other inferior light sources whenever we’re calibrating and/or tweaking our turntables. Canadian manufacturer Reliable has a much, much smarter LED task-light solution for doing all that — namely, their new UberLight Frame, which was specifically designed with the audiophile in mind. Read on to see how the UberLight Frame has helped us shine a brighter light upon our detail-oriented table-adjustment proclivities. . .

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Set-Up Accessory Reviews
A Useful Overhang Gauge With Some "Ifs" Attached
Michael Fremer  |  May 27, 2021
Someone on one of the Facebook turntable groups asked what "overhang" was. None of the answers that I read properly defined it, (though a few talked about the head shell slots being involved) and I've forbidden myself from ever again participating on any of those groups after being called a "liar and a bullshit artist" in response to one innocent comment I made and "an industry puppet" following another.

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Set-Up Accessory ReviewsSet-Up Tips
"shaknspin" Electronically Measures Turntable Speed Plus a Great Deal More
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 19, 2021
While the name "shaknspin" may sound like a child's toy, the device is anything but, though it does make child's play of measuring turntable speed, calculating wow and flutter, jitter and more, graphically representing speed variations as histograms by frequency and speed distribution and even mo
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Set-Up Accessory ReviewsSet-Up Tips
Everything You Know About Skating Is Wrong!
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 11, 2020
Well, that’s a clickbait headline for sure, but unlike most it’s probably true, especially if you’ve taken my word on this.

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Set-Up Accessory ReviewsSet-Up Tips
WAM Engineering's New, Improved WallySkater V2.1
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 02, 2020
Skating, a pivoted tonearm’s tendency to “skate” towards the record center is real, is not created by “centripetal force” and is not best ignored because compensating for it somehow worsens sonic performance.

If you do not apply some kind of skating counterforce, the stylus will ride the inner groove throughout the record side, producing uneven record and stylus wear. And it can’t possibly improve record playback sound.

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NewsSet-Up Accessory ReviewsSet-Up Tips
WallyTools Are Back From The New WAM Engineering
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 21, 2020
WAM Engineering's new universal WallyTractor is now available from the newly formed company, a partnership between the late Wally Malewicz's son Andrzej, himself a mechanical engineer and Wally's former production assistant J.R. Boisclair. They've just launched the Wallyanalog website where you will find complete details of the new $395 universal WallyTractor and the available services the Santa Rosa, CA based company provides.

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Set-Up Accessory Reviews
Beware Magnetized Stylus Pressure Gauges!
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 15, 2020
Revolv has sold a lot of these useful vertical tracking force gauges. To the best of their knowledge—and they know their stuff—they are not magnetized. Yet the one I got surely is as you can see in the video below (there's no sound).

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Playback Accessory ReviewsSet-Up Accessory Reviews
Jolida’s Foz XT-R Crosstalk Reduction Device
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 26, 2018
Minimizing inter-channel crosstalk maximizes channel separation and helps produce a maximally wide and balanced soundstage. Azimuth is a critical cartridge set-up parameter.

Many if not most gimbaled-bearing tonearms don’t allow for axial tilt adjustment to set azimuth.

With arms that do, unipivot or gimbal bearing, physically making sure the head shell is parallel to the platter or setting cantilever perpendicularity using a mirror, does not insure correct azimuth setting just as an arm parallel to the record does not assure correct SRA/ VTA.

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Set-Up Accessory Reviews
Audio Additives Digital Stylus Force Gauge
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 02, 2014
Looking for a good digital stylus force gauge? Once upon time one from Winds cost $800 and was good only to a single digit. Today they can be had good to 3 decimal points for as little as $79 like this Audio Additive by Musicdirect®. Like most today it is made in China.

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Set-Up Accessory Reviews
A $7.49 Illuminated Microscope Can Get You a Decent View!
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 09, 2012
Maybe you don't want to spend a few hundred dollars on a digital USB microscope because that's more than you spent on your phono cartridge in the first place?

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