AV Adviser

Was Steve Jobs working on a better sounding digital format?

Neil Young, a big proponent for better sounding music formats, says that Steve Jobs agreed with him and they talked of developing such a format for iTunes.  He also said that when Jobs was at home he preferred to listen to vinyl records. 

Young talked about this at a technology conference in California on Tuesday.  He said the format would be lossless, containing 100% of the original data, instead the poor sampling rate of an mp3.  It would mean far fewer songs on a portable device and the download would take a long time.  The reward would be a much richer music listening experience. 

The Wall Street Journal's tech writer Walt Mossberg confirmed Young's comments.  He said that Jobs was surprised "that people traded quality, to the extent they had, for convenience or price". 

Here's the story from the Huffington Post, Neil Young: Steve Jobs Listened To Vinyl.

If you have a question or if I may be of service email me at radiohannibal@gmail.com

John Hannibal

A New Take On An Old Way To Clean Your Vinyl Records

A good friend of mine in the AV business recently told me about a guy in Pittsburgh who's creating quite a business selling a new take on an old type of vinyl record cleaner.  It's called the Spin Clean.

I'm still using a Discwasher.  Remember the Discwasher?  I still have a couple of them dating back to the 80s at least.  Nowadays I make my own cleaning formula, a mix of distilled water, isopropyl alcohol and a few drops of Woolite.  You can find this solution and others in a quick Google search. 

The original Spin Clean Record Washer dates back to the 1970s.  The Mawhinney family's story on the evolution of the product is interesting and coincides with the resurgence of vinyl in recent years. 

Spin Clean claims the real secret is their own liquid formula as opposed to the home made types I described above.  There's only one way to prove it.  I think I'll be buying one of these units and comparing my solution with their secret recipe. 

Here's an independent demo of the product.