Back in the late 1990s, I was facing crippling student loan debts, hernia-inducing car payments, obscene property taxes, and a backbreaking mortgage. Stated succinctly, money was in rather short supply. As an audiophile with a meagre [...]
The ominous looking and aptly named Dark Star turntable is manufactured by Transrotor of Germany. If you haven’t heard of Transrotor, you might be surprised to know that the company has been around for over 45 [...]
In 1886, Emile Berliner invented the flat disc record. A year or two later, that disc was probably covered in dust, dog fur, and an infinite number of mould particles. No doubt Emile ran into the [...]
We live in an age where the price of entry to audiophile sound can choke a good-sized bull-moose. As wonderful as $500K level 2-channel systems can sound, none of it gets my adrenalin flowing. Why…? ‘Cause [...]
In a recurring dream, I’m driving along a nameless country road on a sunny spring day when I come upon a garage sale. After spotting a few milk crates holding dozens of pristine 180 gram Mobile [...]
There’s an old adage about self-reliance that states: “Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll go bankrupt on the East coast.” Similar to commercial [...]
Gold Note Giglio Turntable + B7 Tonearm + Dynavector 10X5 M/C Cartridge Review With nearly 25 years of experience in manufacturing 2-channel components, today Gold Note of Florence, Italy makes a range of turntables, cartridges, phono [...]
Imagine this: It’s mid-morning at Bryston’s HQ in Peterborough Ontario. James Tanner, VP of Sales, sits at his desk answering emails. He’s surrounded by boxes filled with cash- CDN dollars, US dollars, and Euros. There’s so [...]
Gold Note’s origin dates back to 1992, near Florence Italy, when the company began manufacturing innovative audio accessories under the BlueNote brand. Throughout the 90s the company produced circuit boards for numerous high-end audio companies from [...]
These days, you can get a turntable-tonearm-cartridge setup for as low as $99 but to be honest, these don’t amount to anything more than toys. You have to enter the $500 to $1,000 category to start [...]