by Michael

Loricraft Record Cleaner

Finally.

Finally sold our demo PR3 and now can order our PR4 or PRC-4 Deluxe [I like the idea of cleaning records in both directions. Then again, I am the one too lazy to do the Walker Prelude 4-step process :-)].

Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo handy. I mean, I have taken a million photos over the years – but finding one when I need it. Ha!

Our PR3 was [is] really quiet and it is kind of shocking that so many people clean records with record cleaners that damage their ability to hear music – at least in the short term.

Kind of like vacuum cleaning the house with your ear down there by the floor and the screaming motor.

It is not like any of us like to vacuum, especially [tho some people do it for relaxation]. We even sold our Royal vacuum cleaner – a great cleaner, but it was too darn noisy.

So why would someone want to clean their records with one hooked up to a wet hair brush? Maybe because they do not know about the Loricraft?

OK, here is a stock photo:

Loricraft record cleaner

It cleans records by applying a very, very strong vacuum at just one tiny area – much more effective than the wide area approaches – using a continuously spooling, always new, piece of thread to aim the suction and suck up that awful crud from way down deep inside the groove as it vacuums up whatever fluids you are cleaning/soaking/scrubbing the record with.

That is a long sentence huh?

But that is what it does. The fluid ends up in the mason jar on the right that one empties every so often. Not very often for us, but Kevin is the one who cleans records like a maniac 🙂 We, we try and clean them before we use them – and sometimes right after we buy them and are all excited about them – but we are too undisciplined to carry out a well-formed pan of attack on the Sate of the Dirty Record Collection in a kind of preemptive strike like Kevin does.

Cleaned records not only do not have crackles and pops – they actually sound better in terms of micro-dynamics, soundstage, dynamics, harmonic detail… in many ways that have surprised us. The shootout with the Walker Prelude was conclusive – you can do a quick little cleaning, or you can suffer wondering whether you are hearing more dirt than vinyl – then a few pops and crackles and then you know for sure [ah, the life of an audiophile :-)].

Anyway, we’ll have more to say and photos when we agree on what we are getting [*sigh*] and get it here.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Loricraft 0 comments
 by Michael

The Economy is Baaaack

Well, at least some of is – and this is a good thing.

And now that the press is talking about how bad unemployment is… that is about to get better as well. We all KNOW that the press is always late to the party.

So what does that mean in high-end audio?

That means the bargain basement deals on Audiogon are drying up.

That means that dealers and manufacturers are selling things again.

That means that CES attendance might be up by 150 to 200% over last year. [don’t ask me how I know. OK, I was looking at the AVN conference (Adult Entertainment Expo) next door to CES to see how hard it is to get in as press to THAT show and they said registration is WAY up by about this amount. No, I think I would be too embarrassed to take 100 close-up shots of the porn star celebrities at that show. Or… am… I? :-)]

Sure, we are all still a little scared and some losers are preaching doom and gloom [ever notice, these kinds of people NEVER preach BEFORE the disaster, it is always in hindsight and to kind of add their own special sauce to an already bad situation.]

So, with more or less full recovery around the corner [well… yes, even for audio] what should we be doing?

Many say we should be repositioning ourselves now – why things are slow and their is time, and while the prices are not quite as stiff as they might be soon. I do not know if this is wise advice or not.

I think prices were too low for the ‘out with the old’ which had to happen before ‘in with the new’. So as some life comes back into the marketplace – expect to see one hell of a madhouse as people sell all their equipment and buy what they think will be better – after all, there has been almost 2 years of pent-up-demand building and building…

So the dealers and manufacturers who will make out are the ones who can handle lots of traffic, lots of orders, because if the hesitate – someone else will get the sale.

And for audiophiles, you have to be quick on the uptake because some things are kind of rare and will not appear on the market very often – and this will be an opportunity to get just about anything you ever thought about buying.

And, by the way, this is true for the Art market and Housing market as well.

No, it won’t ‘over stimulate’ the economy – the doomsayers always like to poop on the party. I do not think a lot of people will be making money as there will be much more swapping for things of about equal value as opposed to everybody emptying their bank accounts to upgrade their lifestyles. But still, with 2 years pent up demand, there will be plenty of people buying new things as well.

I could be wrong – but think about it.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Sounding Off 0 comments
 by Michael

A Hybrid Review Approach…

… mixing the subjective and objective…

Essentially it uses a subjective analysis of objective aspects of the sound of a component.

Even more essentially, the listener gives it the old ‘college try’ and guestimates how good a component is in several pre-determined and STANDARDIZED categories.

See, if the categories are well-chosen and are standardized, and a number from 1 to 10, say, is assigned, then components can be compared.

Anyway, in the most recent Spintricity article:

Towards a Hybrid Subjective Objective Review Process

… we attempt to come up with some categories that we, at least, use here [tho in the past we have not been so disciplined as to assign a number to score a component’s performance in each category]

The idea is to create a list that we can print out and then enter or circle a number of something so that the review process can be raised up out of the muck and mire.

in High-end Audio HiFi and Stereo / Philosophy / Reviewers / Reviews / Spintricity 0 comments