Stereophonic cutter heads developed by Neumann are designed to accept a cutting stylus with a conical shank, resembling a micro-miniature version of a Morse Taper, a type of fitting frequently encountered in machine tools, especially metalworking lathes. Vinylium and FloKaSon cutter heads also adopted the same fitting for the sake of compatibility. But most other cutter heads, especially all those predating the stereophonic era, used long, thin cylindrical shanks, often with a flat machined on one side, to allow a set-screw to align the stylus and secure it in place.
Meet George Vardis, a retired biologist with a Master's Degree in Food Technology, residing in Athens, Greece. George is a sophisticated man with many interests, including sailing, photography, motorbikes, and music. He plays the piano and the guitar, but his career always steered well clear of the music industry. He was never a recording artist, nor was he a recording engineer. In fact, he has probably never seen a recording studio in real life.
Swiss Precision Engineering: The legendary Schaublin 102 precision lathe with parts of a Simonet lathe in the Agnew Analog laboratory! These pictures are from a 2016 restoration project, documented on the Agnew Analog website. Read the full report here: Schaublin 102 Swiss Precision Lathe Restoration
Back in 2015, we started a big lathe project, taking a beat-up Fairchild lathe from the 1930's, fitting it with an RCA cutter head, and eventually going full-on with a stereophonic feedback cutter head, vacuum clamp-down platter and automatically variable pitch.
The AM44 is a Neumann-based lathe, built on original Neumann castings, manufactured around 1944, during the second world war.
The project was founded by Flo Kaufmann, in Switzerland, when he managed to find a pile of these rare beds in the unexplored depth of a warehouse. The plan is to build them up into fully functional disk mastering systems, using newly designed and manufactured parts.
In 2016, Sabine and J. I. Agnew acquired one of these beds, built up and further developed it, into an exceptional quality disk mastering system, which was put to professional service at Magnetic Fidelity.
