Blog
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Best Pressing Shootout *Revisited: Eric Dolphy, Out to Lunch — 1977 King Japan vs. 2015 Music Matters 33
Japanese pressings in general, and King Records pressings in particular, have been faring very well so far in my Brest Pressing Shootouts. Now it’s time to bring in another of the vaunted “best reissues” series: the recent Music Matters pressings. They’re expensive as hell, they’re hard to get into Canada — but no less an…
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Best Pressing Shootout *Revisited: The Ornette Coleman Trio, At the “Golden Circle” Volume One — 1966 New York USA Blue Note vs. 1977 King Japan
In the first of an exciting new series of “Best Pressing Shootouts,” I compare two pressings of an amazing-sounding live disc: the Ornette Coleman Trio At the “Golden Circle” Volume One. See red text below for the “revisited” account of this BPS! Why am I starting here? Three reasons. First, I love the music. No,…
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ZapSnaps! Upgrading a Naim Snaps Power Supply with a Ryan Sound Labs PSM-2
Get ready for more posts like this! I’ve spent the summer converting my garage into a workshop + rehearsal space + listening room — a space that my partner and I are now calling, for reasons known only to ourselves, “Sillys Place.” I have been building a loudspeaker setup out there (or here, rather, as…
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LP12MF Listening Test: Tiger Paw Tranquility Magnetic Bearing Support
Since I moved my LP12 out to my garage, my LP12 Modification Frenzy has lost a bit of focus. I have stopped listening on headphones through a stable setup, I have totally stopped using my Schiit Gungnir DAC, and I have devoted most of my energy and attention to building a really excellent loudspeaker setup…
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Reaching Paradise
I write this post while listening to music coming out of my Paradise. Which is to say: I (Adam) am back in the Garden… Finishing the Build All of the hard work was done by the time I made my last post. It was then a matter of waiting for a few more pieces to…
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Further Progress to Paradise
I have been busy this week working on my Paradise. All of the nitty gritty details can be found on the “Adam’s Paradise” thread on Audio Flat. Here, I will present a fairly quick overview, focusing on pretty pictures. Case work I’d been thinking about and dreading this aspect of the project for months: how…
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“Linishing”: Getting the Chrome Bumper Look
I spent all day yesterday figuring out how to silkscreen onto polypropylene: a stressful, tiring, and lengthy process — but one that turned out well. I was hoping that today’s task would be easier. Thankfully it was. What I wanted to do today was to give my Naim shoebox cases the “Chrome Bumper” (“CB”) look,…
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Making Fasciae for My Paradise
As I mentioned in my last post, I had all kinds of complicated ideas for my Paradise fasciae, with all manner of rear illumination, parallax effects, and light pipes being mooted. In the end, I decided on a Chrome Bumper looked, which was comparatively simple. Which is not to say that it was easy to…
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Ascending to Paradise
As you may have noticed, the regularity of my posts here has slowed down a bit in recent months. This is not because I’ve lost my enthusiasm for hifi. Quite the opposite: I’ve been so utterly obsessed that I’ve had no time to reflect on or write about it. Mostly what I’ve been up to…
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LP12MF Listening Test: Naim Aro and Greenstreet Subchassis
In the latest edition of the LP12 Modification Frenzy, I put the Dynavector XX-2 cartridge onto the legendary Naim Aro tonearm and mount them on a Greenstreet subchassis. You can read about the process of installing the Aro here. You can check out my listening methodology here. Full listening impressions are below. Digestible, numerical summaries…
