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A WallyTool setup update

Stereophile

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August 2021

ANALOG CORNER

- MICHAEL FREMER

A WallyTool setup update

THIS ISSUE: Michael Fremer’s illustrated cartridgesetup guide using a digital oscilloscope, a USB microscope, and a variety of WallyTools.

Held every November in normal times, the annual Warsaw Audio Video Show is among the world’s largest. I first attended a decade ago, in 2011, and was amazed by both the number of attendees—more than 10,000 people—and demographics that skewed young and included many families. That show was bigger and better attended than any I’ve been to in America.

The show organizers had arranged for my travel and hotel accommodations in exchange for a series of turntable setup seminars, which seemed like a fair deal.

Upon my arrival at Frederic Chopin airport, I was picked up not by someone from the show but by an individual who informed me that he and not the show organizers had paid for my trip, in exchange for setting up his turntable!

I was okay with that. For one thing, it was kind of flattering, don’t you think, for someone to fly you a third of the way around the world just to set up his turntable? I got to see the beautiful Polish countryside, have a lakeside meal at a fine restaurant, and spend some time in Torún, the birthplace of Copernicus. But first I had to set up this guy’s turntable.

FLERE HISTORIER FRA Stereophile

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Life in the emerald beyond

If you find yourself in Monaco on a Sunday night, make your way to La Note Bleue, a cozy restaurant and music bar on the beach by the Avenue Princesse Grace. There, you're likely to find a legendary world/fusion guitarist sitting in with a group of young jazz musicians eager to cut heads with the acknowledged maestro of inner awareness and otherworldly spirits. Forever known to some as “Mahavishnu,” you can call him by his birth name, John McLaughlin.

time to read

3 mins

December 2025

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36 sides of late Bowie

I Can't Give Everything Away is the sixth and last of the Bowie box sets that survey specific periods in the artist's career. The first was Five Years 1969–1973, released in September 2015. That was followed by Who Can I Be Now? (1974–1976), A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982), Loving the Alien (1983–1988), Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001), and finally the new set. Together, the six sets are an impressive testament to a musical giant—a heavyweight tribute figuratively and literally. You could use this last installment to pump up your biceps.

time to read

3 mins

December 2025

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Is this the ultimate old-school analog move?

Dedicated readers know that lately in this space I’ve been on something of an analog kick. Two months ago, in the October issue,¹ I wrote about refurbishing and modding my old McIntosh FM tuner. Last month’s column (November) was on the much-discussed but little-understood topic of the skating force on a phono cartridge stylus.²

time to read

4 mins

December 2025

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STEREOPHILE'S 34TH ANNUAL PRODUCT OF THE YEAR 2025 AWARDS

Stereophile's Product of the Year Awards were first published in 1992.1 I decided at that time that, in contrast to other publications' awards schemes, we would keep the number of categories to a minimum.

time to read

21 mins

December 2025

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DeVore Gibbon Super Nine

LOUDSPEAKER

time to read

11 mins

December 2025

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Some marketing claims are true

None of the amps I build are better than the others,” Justin Weber of Ampsandsound told me not long after we met. “They are just different.” I may have smirked inwardly. According to his company’s website, Weber makes no fewer than 23 amplifier models, many capable of driving both headphones and speakers, ranging from the $2700 Kenzie OG to the $38,000 Arch Monos. Are they really all equally good?, I wondered. Surely this was just a clever Buddhist ploy to distract us from some of his amps’ high prices. Doesn't the extra $35k spent on the Arch Monos buy you something more desirable than the performance offered by the little Kenzie? Writing for an audio magazine means I hear a lot of marketing claims, some more risible than others, and I have learned to take them with an entire seabed worth of salt.

time to read

11 mins

December 2025

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Lotti Golden

Her life became a whirlwind. Taking the train in from Brooklyn to Manhattan to pitch songs and experience the East Village scene, she landed a song-publishing deal at age 14. In 1968, at 18, after a chance meeting in an elevator, a legendary songwriter/record producer was interested in assisting her in making her debut album. Released on Atlantic Records in 1969, Lotti Golden's Motor-Cycle was wildly experimental and ahead of its time. Seemingly poised for success, the album and her career suddenly vanished.

time to read

4 mins

December 2025

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Baby you can drive my car(tridge)

While I was coming to grips with this month's review subject, the idler drive Garrard 301 Advanced, I began to think about the various methods that have been used to spin turntable platters over the years. Since the transition a century ago from windup clockwork to electric motors, there have basically been three ways to spin a turntable platter: idler drive, belt drive, and direct drive. True, there have also been a few designs that go their own unique ways, such as the rare, water-driven Oasis made by David Gillespie of Saturn Audio in the late 1970s and the gear-driven H.H. Scott 710 I once owned and foolishly sold. But almost everything made since the 1950s uses one of the three main drive systems. Even the Omega Drive system, which was used by Wilson Benesch on their extraordinary GMT One turntable, is at its core a direct drive design.

time to read

10 mins

December 2025

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Audio Research Reference 330M

MONOBLOCK POWER AMPLIFIER

time to read

19 mins

December 2025

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MANUFACTURERS' COMMENTS

MoFi Distribution would like to thank both Ken Micallef and John Atkinson for their time and effort reviewing the HiFi Rose RA280 integrated amplifier (November 2025, p.93).

time to read

2 mins

December 2025

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