biggestapple's Profile

Got hold of the photographer and he was nice enough to confirm two of the pieces shown. One is indeed the Infinity QB speakers. The other is the amp - an Audioromy 838A FU13

He didn't know about the turntable but I'm sticking by my guess of a Transcriber Skeleton.

@Janet Brandt: The sleeves shown in the photo are the Mobile Fidelity Master Sleeves and are arguably the best on the market: http://www.mofi.com/product_p/omrs.htm

I use them for all my records after giving them a good clean which brings me to my next comment - The Clearaudio Double Matrix looks to be a lovely piece of kit but there are other less expensive RCM's on the market that do a great job. I use an Okki Nokki: http://www.okkinokki.co.uk/ and then of course there's the old war horse - VPI: http://www.vpiindustries.com/main_cleaning.htm There are others as well - Nitty Gritty, Kieth Monks, etc.

General rule of thumb is - if you've got 200+ records (who doesn't) and are serious about keeping them clean, get yourself a record cleaning machine. They'll pay for themselves in years to come as a clean record is much kinder to your stylus. If you're not quite ready for that kind of investment however there are alternatives such as the Spin Clean: http://www.spincleanrecordwasher.com/ I've heard these do a decent job but of course have no vacuum so you'll never get your records as clean as you would on a proper RCM but still, it's better than just a dry clean method.

Lastly, for wet cleaning you need to consider what cleaning fluids to use. You can make your own (3 parts distilled water with 1 part isopropyl alcohol - at least 90% pure, then add a drop of Ivory Soap) or go with a trusted manufacturer such as Mobile Fidelity or AVIS. One word of warning - if you're looking to clean any 78s do NOT use any fluid which contains alcohol.

Keep those records spinning!