Members and guests nicely filled the conference room at The Shops at Hilltop, and the SFAS music system worked well to demonstrate Michael’s selected tracks (making allowances for the size of the room). Special thanks to Joe Hakim for loaning his Pioneer Exclusive P10 turntable, Air Tight cartridge, and Whest phono stage. We used these with the equipment on loan from Don Naples, including Orion-4 speakers, three Pass Labs power amps, an analog signal processor, and assorted cabling and other parts. Thanks Joe and Don!
Although Michael was there to DJ, our members pressed for answers to various equipment questions as well, starting off with hot topics such as the Kirmuss and Audio Desk record cleaners. Michael thinks that the Kirmuss is very effective at cleaning records, a two-minute process, though Charles Kirmuss provides endless commentary that, ahem, results in people shaking their heads. Note: two minutes is the cleaning cycle only, not the whole process. Michael said, “I believe this thing works. If you want to spend a half an hour for every record, you’ll only play a few records in your life. But so what, they’ll be clean.” The Kirmuss product worked well cleaning Michael’s 50-year-old UK version of Abbey Road when he was asked to provide a reference for the team working on the new 50th anniversary release.
Regarding Audio Desk, Michael was not impressed with the $100 charge for the four rollers that are consumables and require periodic replacement. He suggested that members could visit Dick Blick Art Materials and try the 2 for 4.99 mini paint rollers, but afterwards, on his Analog Planet website, he concluded that unfortunately there is a fit issue with the cheap rollers.
At the request of some of our members, I will go into more detail than usual summarizing the recordings that Michael DJed. Michael played digital files (record rips, of course), records, and acetates.
Pivoted vs tangential tonearm
We compared digital files of tangential (linear tracking) and pivoted arms playing “Rhapsody In Blue” (Boston Pops, Fiedler conducting, with Earl Wild on piano). We were asked to pick the recording with more distortion and the one that sounded better. Our members generally thought that the linear tracking arm sounded better though apparently other groups had picked the pivoted arm (in each case, not knowing which was which when listening). Michael said that the pivoted arm was actually cleaner as the linear tracking arm’s air bearing constantly moved in different directions, and therefore was not really playing tangential to the groove. By comparison, he thought the pivoted arm had a cleaner sound, with less of the fake atmospherics provided by the tangential arm. Michael thought the SFAS choice may have been influenced by the acoustics of the large conference room.
Deciding whether to buy a $2 record
Next up was Lightnin’ Hopkins – Lightnin’ Strikes, a record on the Tradition Everest label that sold used for $2. Why buy it? Recorded in October 1965 in Los Angeles, the album also included Earl Palmer on drums and Jimmy Bond on bass. Michael noted that every studio in LA during that era was great and reasoned that the record likely would be pretty good for $2. He played the “Mojo Hand” track and proved his point.
When reissues go bad