30 years ago I woke up to the headlines of John Lennon’s murder. It was a long walk to school that day. I was only 13 but I knew the World had lost a prophet. Imagine if we could all get along and not be murderous religious fanatics and greedy corporate entities. Every child has a full belly when they’re tucked into bed. Worldwide love and respect for others. Too bad Humanity isn’t capable…. Imagine if we were.
The $499 Okki Nokki RCM is an exceptionally well-designed device created specifically for cleaning all vinyl recordings. The Okki Nokki is a quality product made in Germany and consists of a heavy-duty motor/turntable and vacuum system encased in a compact aluminum chassis. The motor function provides for ultra-quiet forward and reverse operation. When used with the supplied goat hair cleaning brush, the forward/reverse turntable motion allows for extremely effective groove scrubbing. Once cleaned, the record can be vacuumed using the aluminum suction arm. The residual dirt and fluid is then removed by suction and transferred into the internal liquid reservoir, which has a sensor that will shut off the machine when full. Dedicated suction arms for use with 7†and 10†records are available as an option. Accessories supplied with the machine include a standard 12†LP suction arm, goat hair cleaning brush, record clamp, grounded detachable AC cord and a small bottle of cleaning fluid concentrate that requires mixing with a liter of purified water. An acrylic dustcover is available at time of purchase or as an optional accessory.
The coolest part of my “job” is meeting interesting people. You never know who may pop in. Today I met Eli Reed. Not Eli “Paperboy” Reed, but Eli Reed the famous photojournalist. We talked about Robert Altman, Jazz, his friend guitarist Jimmy Stewart and how it’s great to hear music reproduced well. I happened to have The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album spinning at the time. Check out some of his amazing work HERE
UPS finally showed up with the Compact 7’s!! My custom made stands are nearly finished so for the meantime I have them on some 24″ Kudos. Out of the box stunning! The LFD phono pre amp came yesterday and is warming up nicely. What cartridge to use with it? I highly recommend the Dynavector 10X5 or the new 20X2-H (see below). It’s made for high output moving coil carts, but can easily take moving magnet as well. You just have to move a jumper on the board to change the gain. Also burning in are the LFD Spiroflex speaker cables. The Spiroflex cables are solid core copper twisted in a black mesh jacket with high quality banana Z connectors.
Dig the Orange “UT Longhorns” Rega P3-24! Go Texas!
Features and Improvements
DV-20X2 has a solid aluminum alloy body and a rigid magnet construction similar to XX-2MKII. The cantilever is a 6mm length of hard aluminum pipe with a Micro-Ridge stylus. The magnetic flux damping and softened magnetism along with powerful neodymium magnets gives the 20X2H a healthy 2.8 mV output – suitable for most MM inputs. The 20X2L has an output of 0.3 mV ideal for most MC phono stages.
Both high and low versions of their 20X2 are available ensure for the optimum end result. The high output model is well suited to valve preamplifiers or electronics that only offer MM inputs whilst the low output version offers superb performance when combined with dedicated moving coil inputs. $850
Buy my low hour floor demo 20X-L for a song! Retail $750 Demo $495!! Gotta be current!
It’s been a busy weekend! I hope you all stuffed yourselves into a Tryptophan / Football induced coma! Marc Phillips AKA Vinyl Anachronist spent the day at the shop checking out the latest goods and later met up with me at End Of An Ear record shop for the Rega event. I just ordered up the Harbeth Compact 7ES-3 and new LFD LE phono Preamp. They should be here in a few days!
I molested and heard it in action while I was in Dallas at Sound Organisation. Yes, it’s “all that”! The best under $1K DAC I’ve ever heard! Already own an Apollo or Planet CD player? Want it to trounce a Saturn? It will. Take advantage of the “cash for clunkers” program (Apollo $150 off / Saturn $600 off with trade in) and get both a Apollo and DAC for $1840. It will improve nearly any digital device in that smooth analog-esque Rega way. When? “Two Weeks mate”. Seriously.
The Rega DAC is a 16/20/24-bit at 32kHz to 192kHz digital to analogue converter incorporating an enhanced version of the Rega designed circuit. Developed to be simple to set up and use, the Rega DAC is designed to optimise performance from any two channel PCM digital audio source such as a CD player PC or streaming device.
With the PC/Laptop and MAC now widely accepted as creditable mediums for storing and streaming music. The use of high quality lossless files such as WAV, FLAC and ALAC offer performance through the DAC equal to and in some cases better than red book CD.
Housed in a custom aluminium and steel case and boasting a pair of Wolfson DAC IC’s, 5 user selectable digital filters, two isolated Co-axial inputs, two Toslink SPDIF inputs and an isolated USB input. The Rega DAC is designed and engineered to perform way above its class.
If you were thinking of buying some hi-fi, do it NOW! Many of my lines prices are going up due to the stellar worthlessness of the dollar. For instance, the Naim UnitiQute has an introductory price of $1995. It’s going up to $2500 December 1st! Any orders I submit by November 30th will be at the lower price. This is across the board. If you need more info. please don’t hesitate to call me (if you have a local dealer, call them). It’s such a steal at $1995! Save yourself $500. HURRY! Whetstone Audio gladly accepts payment in gold / silver coins! (it’s been done before!)
