By Juan C. Ayllon March and April are typically a busy time for us at the Prairie Audio homestead, and it's been a little more hectic season for us this year. As a full-time educator, the close of the third quarter has its share of grades, burnout, and a brief respite in the form of spring break in March, followed by a rash of birthday celebrations in April. However, this year, I took on a heftier load of review projects and recently suffered a small setback that brought things to a grinding halt. With Belle working over spring break, I had plans to wrap up a handful of reviews. However, that wasn't how it played out. While working on my Audio Creative GrooveMaster 3 tonearm review, I bent the stylus of a borrowed cartridge 20 degrees when a velcro strap failed to hold it securely during a tonearm swap. The cartridge still worked, but had to be replaced. My cost was eight hundred and eighty dollars. That's $880 that wasn't in my budget. I had just shelled out several hundred dollars in fees with iPage, the company that hosts Prairie Audio (who wanted to charge me $485 for hosting fees in addition to several hundred other service-related fees that I'd paid in the last three months, but settled for $180 after I threatened to contact the Better Business Bureau, NBC, and a host of consumer-related media). And now this? I was besides myself; I had never damaged a sample since I began reviewing in 2014! And, on top of that, at least four reviews relied on having a fully operational phono cartridge. Holy cow. That really stung, and it set back my review timelines several weeks. Gutted, I made it out to Audio Expo North America (AXPONA) the following week, met with friends, snapped photos, and scribbled pages upon pages of notes. My report should be online sometime in May. New Beginnings Spilled milk and all, it was time to move on. On the recommendation of an industry friend, I now have a GoldRing Ethos SE MC phono cartridge in for review, as well as a key role in another four or fi e reviews that are in various stages of development. As I type, I am breaking it in. So far, it sounds glorious, and I am anxious to put it to work as I whittle down my list of projects! . I'll Raise You One
Several years ago, I employed a pair of weightlifting stands that my youngest brother had built for me to support an unusually heavy turntable, the Triangle Art Anubis. I thought I was done with that, however, recently Belle perceived that the combination of the heavy quartz (or is it granite? I forget) isolation base and my Micro Seiki BL-91 turntable was causing undo strain on our expensive BDI Corridor media console, visibly raising the glass top at the ends. Whereas I thought this was an optical illusion (after all, the unit is designed to support upwards of 300 lbs.), for peace of mind, I redeployed the weight stands, upon which the platform, with a rubber tool mat affixed to its underside, now sits. As an added benefit, I could probably pound on the unit and turntable wouldn't notice. However, for sanity's sake, I'll pass (I would die if I damaged the console!). Oye! Anyways, I have work to do. Having just resolved another website outage earlier this morning (making that a grand total of at least four times Prairie Audio Man Cave has been down in the last several years), we are back live and online! For those who enjoy reading these pages, thanks for your support and patience (and thanks, Jeff, for alerting me this morning!). I have some listening sessions and writing to do this afternoon! Full steam ahead! Cheers!
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