Features

Today’s budding audiophiles have more introductory options than ever. Available and (fairly) affordable are introductory turntable systems, great headphones, headphone amps, DACs, and… desktop speakers?

Enter the minds of Vanatoo, the company founded by experienced audio enthusiasts Gary Gesellchen and Rick Kernen. Gesellchen’s background includes decades of speaker designing and building, while Kernen has worked for over 35 years in micro-processing. Their speakers are aimed at those who “care about music, want something that sounds good, and also understand that they shouldn’t be forced to sacrifice convenience for quality,” Gesellchen told me in an email exchange. Vanatoo’s speakers though intended for desktops, can also be used in home theaters as well as in full room stereo systems.

Founded in 1982 by the editors-in-chiefs from five European photography magazines to select the "camera of the year", EISA has grown to international stature and now includes groups covering Hi-fi, home theater, mobile phones, in-car electronics and other categories

Here's 100 recommended all-analog LP reissues worth owning. The video runs two hours so unless you are masochistic, you might want to watch in shorter segments but covering 100 LPs took time! Plus there are the usual fun stories interspersed throughout. Okay, I got wrong the The Who's "Tommy"'s original issue date (I said November '68, was May '69) otherwise all of the information should be correct. Yes, too many superlatives, but that’s video!

Here's a double dose for AnalogPlanet readers (and YouTube viewers) who like "unboxing videos": AnalogPlanet editor Michael Fremer unboxes the not yet released Analogue Productions UHQR Clarity Vinyl mono issue of Jimi Hendrix's classic "Axis: Bold As Love" and the second edition of the deluxe "Blue Note Review" box #2"—this one a tribute to jazz drummers, particularly Art Blakey.

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.

An elderly gentleman wearing a pair of high tech digital hearing aids accompanied his wife to a kennel club meeting at my home a few years ago. He had little interest in the dog doings upstairs so I invited him downstairs into my listening room. It allowed me to conduct an experiment of sorts. Did he like music? Yes. Had he ever heard or seen a big high performance audio rig? No, he hadn’t. Would he like to hear some music on it? Yes he would: jazz or classical. I obliged, curious to find out what exactly he heard listening through digital hearing aids to a high-resolution audio system. The look on his face told me he was hearing plenty.

AnalogPlanet recently posted 3 96/24 "John Wesley Harding" files recorded from original, Sony Legacy and Mobile Fidelity mono records and asked readers to weigh in on what they heard and which they preferred (if any).