A Wonderful Place

Apr 25, 2026

I remember when I first heard a drum fill roll across the ceiling, I wanted that experience with every record. That led to upgrades, tweaks, and room treatment.

I wanted tighter bass, more detail, and a better stereo image. I wanted to experience that mythical depth of holographic sound. When I got a taste of it, it was like a drug. It’s addictive and I wanted it with every record. Of course, it’s an impossible ask. I won’t get holographic sound from Here Stands Fats Domino. Not like I will with Pink Floyd’s Animals.

I chased better sound for years. I’ve even posted videos about it. What I was actually chasing was control.

I was building a system for sound instead of music.

My Thorens was built by Dave at Vinyl Nirvana. He’s almost zen-like in his approach. The first year I had the turntable, I tested the speed and it tested slightly faster than 33 1/3. Just a hair, and I obsessed over that. I changed the belt and tested again. Still the same. I tried different sizes of record weights. They made very little difference. The speed was the speed.

So I asked Dave about it, thinking I needed an external speed controller or something.

He asked me, very calmly, “Do you hear a difference? Do songs sound different than you remember?”

They didn’t, and I said so.

He politely told me to trust my ears.

He could have easily said “Trust the Music.”

Let’s say you have a 50K system. All the bells and whistles. You listen to music every night and think about what you’ll change next.

If I took it all away for one month and left you with a simple turntable and pair of powered speakers would you still sit down and listen to music every night?

If the answer is yes, you are in a wonderful place.

Remember the Bose Wave radio back in the 90s? It brought big sound to the living room in a little box. It might have cost a little over $300. Maybe $350. Expensive on a small budget, but I could listen to music for hours on that thing.

Has music become a test signal?

The Needle Drop

This… surprised… me.

I’ve never been fan of the Van Hagar years. Nothing against Sammy, I appreciated his music back in his Red Rocker days before joining Van Halen. Without Diamond Dave, the band had lost its mojo in my opinion. My wife Mandie disagrees. She’s camp Sammy, which is why, a couple of summers ago, we went to see “The Best of All Words” tour with a couple friends (who were also Team Sammy). That show, in Mansfield, Mass., was one of the best I had seen in years. It helped that Jason Bonham was on drums for that leg of the tour, but Sammy, in his late 70s, performed with more energy than most would in their twenties. I didn’t come away a Van Hagar convert, but I did come away with a lot of respect. I even added 5150 to my collection forty years after it came out.

When a concert album The Residency, was released last fall I didn’t give it much notice. Then, last week, I had some credit at Amazon to use up and saw the album as a recommendation. So I tossed it in my cart and bought it.

Wow. Rarely has a live album captured the energy as this one does. Even more surprising, I can’t wait to listen to it again.

Chasing Digital?

A reader recently asked, “Is spending thousands on a cartridge just chasing a more ‘digital’ sound?”

“Digital sound”.

What exactly does someone mean when they frame it that way?

They typically mean hyper detailed, low noise floor, and clean.

When we talk about or buy a high-end cartridge it’s not a digital sound we are after, it’s “better retrieval of information”.

I would argue it’s the latter. Before the age of digital, there were many attempts to build better-performing cartridges. Moving coil cartridges were invented decades before digital. The goal, back in the 40s to early 50s, was better tracking and accuracy. It was a physics problem, actually. Replacing the magnets at the end of the cantilever with coils reduced mechanical interference. The stylus could now track the micro-details hidden in the groove. Those little details can be tracked and revealed. When that happens, and it does, digital can be left in the dust.

Another point that needs to be made is that higher-end cartridges aren’t just more accurate, they have character. A Lyra doesn’t sound like a Hana. Neither will it sound like a Koetsu. We hear the materials used and the choices the designer made. We are not hearing “digital”, we are hearing tone, and “less loss”. We are listening to the designer’s vision and the experience they were hoping to share.

At its core, there is nothing digital about analog.

This Week’s Recommendation

What can I say? The Spin Clean will always be my recommendation to anyone who would rather not spend money on expensive vacuum or ultrasonic machines. You really can’t go wrong with it.

My “Updated” Cleaning Routine

I swear by my cleaning routine, but it's not for everyone. What is for everyone is the booklet I've compiled that traces record cleaning methods from the simple to the complex. At the end I reveal my own, complete with the chemicals used, the proper amounts, and how they are applied and removed.