From Vinyl To Plastic

One man's quest for audio perfection

Equipment

Integra DRC-R1.3, DRX-R1.3, DRX-7.3 – First Look Introduction The day I decided to buy my first amplifier (1987) I purchased an Onkyo Integra A-8190 stereo 100 watt amplifier and remained loyal to Onkyo Integra for years purchasing many of their products until I graduated to the Denon AVP-A1HDCI. With it […]

Integra DRC-R1.3, DRX-R1.3, DRX-7.3 – First Look

September 21, 2019 in Audio / Equipment / News tagged DRC-R1.3 / DRX-7.3 / DRX-R1.3 / Integra by fromvinyltoplastic

Dolby Withdraws Upmixing Restrictions — Dolby Withdraws Upmixing Restrictions Dolby has until recently restricted upmixing of non-native Dolby content using their Dolby Surround Upmixer (DSU) technologies. What is an up-mixer I hear you ask? An up-mixer takes an audio signal (like 2CH stereo) and processes it to utilize all of the speakers in your […]

Dolby Withdraws Upmixing Restrictions

September 1, 2019 in Audio / Equipment / News tagged Dolby / DTS / Upmixing / Xperia by fromvinyltoplastic

Filmmaker Mode Unveiled By UHD Alliance — Filmmaker Mode Unveiled By UHD Alliance At a recent press event at the Screen Actors Guild, Martin Scorsese, members of the UHD Alliance, several major consumer electronics manufacturers, and leading Hollywood filmmakers including Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler, Rian Johnson, and Patty Jenkins officially announced a new partnership […]

Filmmaker Mode Unveiled By UHD Alliance

September 1, 2019 in Equipment / News tagged 4K / Amazon Prime Video / Filmmaker Mode / LG / Panasonic / TV / UHD / UHD Alliance / UHDA / Universal / Vizio / Warner Bros by fromvinyltoplastic

DS Audio DS-E1 Optical Cartridge — DS Audio DS-E1 Optical Phono Cartridge – Preview I have just been fortunate enough to be present at a demonstration of the new DS Audio DS-E1 optical cartridge at Audio Connection, Verona, NJ. held on Saturday 8th June. This long established audio retailer was presenting its 9th annual Analog Day. […]

DS Audio DS-E1 Optical Phono Cartridge – Preview

June 11, 2019 in Audio / Equipment / Equipment / News / Reviews tagged DS Audio / DS-E1 / Hana ML / Hana SL / Optical Cartridge / Preview by fromvinyltoplastic

Sound United To Aquire Pioneer & Onkyo Brands — Sound United To Aquire Pioneer & Onkyo Brands Sound United To Aquire Pioneer & Onkyo Brands – You will be assimilated! Sound United who currently owns Denon, Polk Audio, Marantz, Definitive Technology, HEOS, Classé, and Boston Acoustics have finalized plans to aquire Onkyo, Integra and Pioneer. This preliminary agreement will enable […]

Sound United To Aquire Pioneer & Onkyo Brands

May 19, 2019 in Audio / Equipment / News tagged Monopoly / Onkyo / Pioneer / Sound United LLC by fromvinyltoplastic

TD1600 and TD1601 Turntables By Thorens - First Look — TD1600 and TD1601 Turntables By Thorens – First Look This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure here. Introduction & Some History On 1st May 2018 Thorens returned to Germany when Gunter Kürten, Thorens new CEO, took the company back to the newley formed Thorens GMbH in Bergisch Gladbach […]

TD1600 and TD1601 Turntables By Thorens – First Look

April 27, 2019 in Audio / Equipment / News / Vinyl tagged TD160 / TD160 Super / TD1600 / TD1601 / Thorens / Turntables by fromvinyltoplastic

McIntosh MPC500 Power Controller | Clean Power — McIntosh MPC500 Power Controller | Clean Power My 2 Cents It happens to many. A lighting strike or electrical surge damages your most prized piece(s) of HT equipment. The cost of good surge and over and under voltage protection can pay for itself in just one disastrous second. Or at […]

McIntosh MPC500 Power Controller | Clean Power

April 10, 2019 in Equipment / News tagged APC / Clean Power / CyberPower / First Look / McIntosh MPC500 / Power / Tripp Lite / UPS by fromvinyltoplastic

TechDAS – Air Force Turntables My 2 Cents I cannot imagine paying more money for a turntable than you can pay for a high end home in many regions of the civilized world…….but you can. Well at least somebody can! So why am I posting something that is probably […]

TechDAS – Air Force Turntables

March 31, 2019 in Audio / Equipment / News tagged Air Force / Air Force One / Air Force Zero / TechDAS / Turntables by fromvinyltoplastic

Tidal Releases MQA Android and iOS App — Tidal Releases MQA Android and iOS App Introduction Let me first say that I am not a big fan of MQA. I have tried it at home using Tidal and was not impressed when compared to 24bit 96/128KHz Linear Pulse Code Modulation (LPCM), Free Lossless Audio Compression (FLAC) or […]

Tidal Releases MQA Android and iOS App

March 27, 2019 in Audio / Equipment / News tagged Android / App / Apple / iOS / MAC / MQA / Tidal by fromvinyltoplastic

Panasonic UB9000 News Flash — Panasonic UB9000 & JVC DLA-NX9 Demo On March the 15th JVC announced that they were collaborating with Panasonic to use the HDR metadata contained in 4K UHD discs and available over the HDMI connection in order to optimize the display of HDR material. One of […]

Panasonic UB9000 & JVC DLA-NX9 Demo

March 24, 2019 in Equipment / Equipment / News / Reviews tagged DLA-NX9 / DLA-RS3000 / JVC / Panasonic / UB9000 / Value Electronics by fromvinyltoplastic

DS Audio DS-E1 Optical Cartridge — DS Audio DS-E1 Optical Cartridge Early last year I posted an article on optical turntables and cartridges. Well things have moved on and audiophile quality optical phono cartridges are now here and affordable. The only company producing optical cartridges is DS Audio, based in Sagamihara City, Japan. The earlier models, […]

DS Audio DS-E1 Optical Cartridge

March 20, 2019 in Audio / Equipment / News tagged DS Audio / DS-E1 / Optical Cartridge by fromvinyltoplastic

McIntosh MTI100 Integrated Turntable - First Look — McIntosh MTI100 Integrated Turntable – First Look You could be forgiven at first glance for thinking that the McIntosh MTI100 Integrated Turntable may look like it’s just a turntable. However, upon further inspection it is a lot more. Its unique design is crafted for those audiophiles who want maximum flexibility […]

McIntosh MTI100 Integrated Turntable – First Look

March 9, 2019 in Equipment / News tagged 12AX7 / Class D / ECC83 / MacIntosh / McIntosh / MTI100 / Tubes / Turntables by fromvinyltoplastic

SME Acquires Garrard Audio — SME Acquires Garrard Audio SME Limited Buys Legendary Turntable Manufacturer Garrard Audio In May 2018 SME Limited announced that it had purchased Garrard Audio from IGB Gradiente S.A. of Brazil, which had acquired the brand name in 1979. SME also announced it had acquired a second British company, Loricraft Audio, […]

SME Acquires Garrard Audio

March 6, 2019 in Equipment / News tagged Garrard / Gradiente Electronics / Loricraft Audio / SME by fromvinyltoplastic

Shure Exits Phono Cartridge Business — Shure Exits Phono Cartridge Business Sad news, for all us vinyl lovers: Shure exits phono cartridge business. This mid 2018 news is worth a post despite it being six months old. I suspect it will have gone unnoticed by many. My first cartridge was a Shure M75E and the […]

Shure Exits Phono Cartridge Business

March 2, 2019 in Equipment / News tagged Cartridge / Shure by fromvinyltoplastic

Samsung Exits the Blu-ray Player Market — Samsung Exits the Blu-ray Player Market First Oppo, and now it’s Samsung. Both have pulled out of 4K player manufacture! The trend looks to be quite obvious, in that streaming is starting to impact disc sales, despite movie houses being quite optimistic about present HD and 4K Blu-ray disc sales. […]

Samsung Exits the Blu-ray Player Market

February 15, 2019 in Equipment / News tagged 4K Blu-ray players / 8K Association / ATSC1 / ATSC3 / Blu-ray Players / Samsung by fromvinyltoplastic