Miscellaneous

The VPI Magic Brick is an 8lb block of steel laminations, about 5" by 3" by 2", encased in a nicely-finished oak box for aesthetic appeal and for protecting whatever the brick is sitting on from scratches. Placing the Brick over the power transformer of a piece of electronic gear is supposed to improve the sound of your stereo system.

The Revox A-77 has extremely good speed regulation, vanishingly low wow and flutter, very low noise, superb tape handling, and the smoothest, widest-range frequency response of any recorder we have ever tested.

The portable version, with built-in monitor amps and speakers, is very compact for a machine with 10½ reel capacity, and is easily carried by one person. Now that the later version is equipped with a flutter-filtering tension arm, our only criticism of the A-77 is its use of three-circuit jacks for the micro phone inputs instead of the XLR-type receptacles that are considered to be "standard" in the US for on-location audio recording.

The Swiss-made G-36 recorder had earned an enviable reputation among perfectionists during the few years that it has been available in the US, and our inability to test one (because of a backlog of other components for testing) became increasingly frustrating to us with each glowing report we heard from subscribers who owned them. Now that we have finally obtained one through the courtesy of ELPA (footnote 1), we can see what all the shouting was about, but we also have some reservations about it.

If you like 1970s rock music, particularly hard rock music, something you love was recorded or mixed in a Record Plant studio. If you have a favorite live album from the '70s or '80s, it was likely recorded by a Record Plant Mobile truck.

It's difficult to put a positive spin on moving. A recent survey ranked it as life's most stressful event, ahead of divorce, losing a job, or becoming a parent. Forty-two percent of respondents said it brought them to tears. Thirteen percent said it was worse than a week in jail.