Features

Analogplanet's Best Reissues of the Decade!

Michael Fremer, Malachi Lui | Mar 01, 2020 | 23 comments

Here are our choices for the best reissues of the past decade. They include individual LPs, box sets and ongoing series. We decided to omit from the list re-mixes such as Abbey Road, because they are not strictly “reissues” as well as “newly found” older recordings such as John Coltrane’s Blue World. Obviously, over the long decade—and one where vinyl again became the reissue format of choice—there were far too many worthwhile records than we could manageably list—Analogue Productions and Mobile Fidelity alone produced dozens of list-worthy reissues. Here are the ones we decided were most important and most worthy of your attention. Please contribute yours in the comments!

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Looks like another year has gone by with a seemingly

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Another year of LP acquiring, cleaning, listening,

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Manhattan’s All Blues played host to Zev Feldman’s

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Analogplanet.com Visits VPI Industries Part 1 Michael Fremer | Oct 30, 2013 | 12 comments

The editor visited VPI Industries today. The original purpose was to tour the factory and pick up a new VPI Direct Drive turntable for review.

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Analogplanet.com Visits VPI Industries Part 2 Michael Fremer | Oct 31, 2013 | 10 comments

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.

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Analogplanet.com Visits VPI Industries Part 3 Michael Fremer | Oct 31, 2013 | 15 comments

Harry Weisfeld has "ring around the collar".

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AnalogPlanet’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guide! Malachi Lui, Michael Fremer | Dec 12, 2021 | 16 comments

Finding gifts for record lovers can prove difficult: the hobby is uniquely personal, often expensive, and comes with the fear of what your gift recipient does and doesn’t already own. As the holidays rapidly approach, we’ve compiled a list of recommended budget turntables, phono preamps, record accessories, LPs, and books. These products are independently selected, and we’ve personally experienced every listed item (or a very similar previous iteration) listed.

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AAA Vinyl Album Reviews Features Short Cuts

AnalogPlanet’s Top LPs of 2023 Mike Mettler, Mark Smotroff | Dec 30, 2023 | 12 comments

endless release-cycle parade consisting of scores of brand-new LPs from both known artists and untested newcomers alike, along with a myriad of archival vinyl reissues and overstuffed box sets galore — a good number of them presented in the much-preferred AAA form to boot. With the calendar set to turn over to 2024 any day now, that means it’s high time to assess the best of what we’ve heard on wax during the past 12 months. Read on to see AP editor Mike Mettler and chief LP reviewer Mark Smotroff’s respective lists of the top archival and new LP releases of 2023. . .

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AAA Vinyl Album Reviews Features

AnalogPlanet’s Top LPs of 2024 Mike Mettler, Mark Smotroff | Dec 20, 2024 | 11 comments

archiving, and spinning, and archiving has come and gone — and not necessarily always in that order, either! — so, naturally, before the big holiday week takes hold of our respective calendars, we here at AP feel it’s the exact right time to determine the best of what we’ve heard on vinyl during the past 12 months. Between the two of us — i.e., 1) Mike Mettler, your intrepid AP editor, and 2) chief LP reviewer, Mark Smotroff — we have listened to multiple-hundreds’ worth of albums on vinyl in 2024 apiece, so read on to see what our 20-plus favorite reissues and new LPs of the year are. . .

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Features Turntable Reviews

Andover Audio's Super-Versatile, High Performance Model-One Turntable Music System Michael Fremer | Nov 02, 2020 | 11 comments

Let’s head off at the pass what will surely be in the comments section under this review of a remarkably compact, full-featured, remote-controllable music playback system that includes in a single box, a high quality Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Esprit 3 speed turntable with dustcover, fitted with an Ortofon 2M “Silver” cartridge (incorrectly identified as OM2 on the Andover website—it’s similar to the Ortofon 2M Red but with fewer winds of the same silver-plated copper wire found in Ortofon’s 2M Bronze and 2M Black) that alone sells for $599 and includes an acrylic platter and 8.6” carbon fiber tonearm, an A/D converter, a 192/24 bit DAC, analog and digital inputs plus a subwoofer “out”, Bluetooth ( Qualcomm APT-X) streaming and built in amplification (2 x 70 Class D watts to woofers and 2 x 30 watts to tweeters) and of course multiple (6) high quality speakers (4 “long throw” aluminum diaphragm woofers and a pair of Air Motion Transformer tweeters originally invented by Dr. Oskar Heil that uses metal-etched folded polyethylene sheets to move air in process we won’t go into here!).

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Andover Audio’s Compact, Full Featured Spinbase Perfect For Dorm Room or Office Michael Fremer | Feb 24, 2020 | 7 comments

Spinbase is a compact (18”Wx13.5”Dx8”H) all-in-one audio system (available in either black or white) that incorporates a two-way vented stereo speaker system featuring a pair of Class “D” powered soft dome tweeters and active woofers using sophisticated DSP processing to produce a box-escaping 270 degree sound field.

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AP Exclusive Video: Record Store Day Preview With Zev Feldman at All Blues Listening Bar Ken Micallef | Apr 06, 2025 | 0 comments

traveling Record Store Day (RSD) cavalcade this past Wednesday, April 2, 2025. Joined by jazz journalist, Jazz and Coffee’s Syd Schwartz, Feldman gave the backstories and played selections from his upcoming RSD 2025 releases. These six RSD releases followed Feldman’s typical Jazz Detective approach, mining tapes from radio stations, performance venues, and collector’s vaults, pressed to virgin vinyl. The accompanying video, shot by our resident jazz expert Ken Micallef, gives you a deeper taste of what the night looked and sounded like. . .

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Audio Fidelity Gets CS&N Off the Couch and Into Your Room Randy Wells | Dec 31, 2011 | 2 comments

The day I learned Steve Hoffman was going to re-master Crosby, Stills & Nash for an Audio Fidelity gold CD edition turned out to be the same day he actually did it. I found out early enough in the day to secure an invitation to Marsh Mastering in Los Angeles, and because I happened to be staying with friends that day only an hour away, managed to arrive in time to witness the entire session. CS&N has been a favorite since I was a teen, so for me, this was like winning the lottery.

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Audio Porn Experiment Part #1 and #2

Michael Fremer | Mar 30, 2017 | 16 comments

The other day, after comparing two power conditioners that produced very different sonic results in my system, and writing a Stereophile review, I decided to conduct an experiment.

Since the sound was so different, could it be recorded? And might people visiting analogPlanet’s YouTube channel hear the differences?

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AudioQuest’s Small $299 DragonFly Cobalt Offers Stunning Digital Audio Playback

Malachi Lui | Oct 21, 2019 | 78 comments

For as long as I’ve reviewed high-performance audio equipment, I’ve repeatedly iterated that to bring young people into the hobby, audio manufacturers need to make excellent, affordable, and convenient products. If a product fails any one of those criteria, hundreds of potential audio enthusiasts are turned away and save for a few outliers, hi-fi continues to be a hobby for old, mostly white men.

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AV Options ULTRA-HBL 6 Outlet Power Strip with 6 Foot AVO Deep Cryo Cord

Michael Fremer | Feb 03, 2019 | 13 comments

In a modern high-performance audio system running out of A.C. jacks is easy, especially if you have only a single-ganged wall jack. But even with a dual jack you’ve only got four-plug A.C. access. So, what’s the solution? If you believe in power conditioning (which is hardly controversial since every recording studio in the world does, though some audio fools don’t), you can add additional jacks with one of those.

Album Reviews Beatles Features

Beatles “End of Days” Produced Chaos and Creativity On the Long and Winding Road to Let It Be (factual corrections per K.Howlett email)

Michael Fremer | Oct 28, 2021 | 40 comments

(photo: Jeremy Neech)
The blank white The Beatles double LP gatefold jacket intended to show the world that the group was finished with busy, production heavy studio creations that relied for completion upon production tricks and gimmickry. Instead, the group wanted to emphasize musicianship and “live play”.

Never mind that the songs sometimes ended up being more individual than group efforts and that squabbling and disagreement led to acrimony as well as long time engineer Geoff Emerick exiting, producer George Martin going on holiday and even Ringo Starr walking out for a few weeks.

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