$300 AT-LPW40WN vs $350 Essential 3 unboxing, shoot-out and review.

Dearest Friends :-D this is the one, friends, especially in North America, have asked me about. The AT-LPW40WN is finally here, and how does it fare against the Pro-Essential 3? The Essential 3 is current and pretty new too, only launched less than 2 years. It sports the OM10 cartridge. I have bought the pretty white gloss version.

AT-LPW40WN $300, Essential 3 $350.

Dear Friends, you will also get to see Mr Jerry, who flew in from the States early last month, to meet up with me, Jerry knew me from my channel, and chatted me up a couple of months ago, signalling to me his trip to Singapore :-D. We met up for the first time, in The Adelphi HiFi Mall as he had chosen!

Funan Mall is a newly constructed mall, just opposite of The Adelphi. It was demolished just two years ago, and this new one is built from the ground up again. From Basement 2 level to Level 7, the Funan Mall sports rock climbing walls, lots of F&B, a big hall for Gaming Competitions!!!!! :-D, Tech stuffs, and a rooftop green area with innovative self-sufficient ecosystems. The Audio Technica Concept retail store is one of the main tenants on Level 4.

The Esplanade is one of my frequent haunts, especially in this month of July, where there is the….JAZZ Festival :-D !!!!! Alexandra Hsieh and Mario Serio are in this video.

Some snippets of Mokobaby and Mimi-chan too :-D. They are so lovely and adorable!

We often bring Mokobaby to Kent Ridge Park on a hill on Sunday mornings.

Warmest Regards my dearest Friends and Buddies :-D
~ ian.

*Background
I am Ian and I reside in sunny Singapore. I love our Vinyl Community and Vinyl Music. Vinyl analogue playback is utterly blissful, and I want for fellow friends and buddies to engage in vinyl music for many, many years in their life, each vinyl buddy through their school life, through the hustle and bustle of daily work, accompany them through precious hours at home with their family members or in their hostel with their friends. Vinyl music is blissful, free of time smear, phase shift, pre-ring and post-ring that plagues digital playback. Vinyl buddies and friends can all attest to that. It is not warm in the “bassy warm” sense, it is not soothing in the sense that “everything gets smoothed out”. It is because it is analogue, very detailed, calm, invigorating, enthralling, dynamic, refreshing. In a word, blissful. Utterly :-D
I want for all to get the very equipment that will get us there. These equipment, I firmly believe, are present, and existent, even at affordable price points!..and I started off in Dec 2015 hunting out for them, selling off my own Rega RP6 (which my wife and I loved) to fund the first batch of cartridges for review: the 5 cartridges in Group A ($70-$80), and the 7 cartridges in Group B ($90-$130). Subsequently I told myself to set aside $500-$1000 per month from my monthly salary to buy equipment to review. My own money. Quite a hefty sum monthly, significant to me, as I am a salaried man. This is my commitment. I believe in every field, there are people who have to make the sacrifice to pursue their love for the greater good, and to serve, the community of friends. I have also downsized my car in mid-2017 so as to commit these monies to fund these projects. I totally, rigorously, and kindly reject all forms of donations, be they from friends, from retailers, from manufacturers. This is a hobby, and my teachers and advisors in life have advised me that to bring balance to life, and to be wholesome, one will engage in a livelihood (daily job or business) that earns the monies, and one will also simultaneously engage in a hobby/service in life that is non-competitive, non-monetarily-remunerative. My wife totally understands what I want to do for the community and she so kindly supports my decision and efforts. Vinyl music is a lovely hobby I hold dearly. Friends and buddies are my ultimate responsibility and my love. I want the very best for them, and to provide totally honest reviews. Moles exist in hifi forums, moles also exist from benefactors who donate. I do not want to remotely encounter any moles masquerading as benefactors donating to my cause, only to find out sooner or later that such donations were/are from certain manufacturers or retailers. Everybody will do things differently. I want to maintain my status as a common-folk, aspire always to adopt the Shokunin spirit: of spending the utmost diligent care, through unhurried work, never caring for returns, in perfecting their work for the community. The personal satisfaction of getting to the very best equipment in each price class to help all my lovely buddies and friends is, the only thing, in store for me :-D We toast to the joy and bliss of vinyl analogue music. Vinyl Music deserves our love and attention. Our listening. Our care.
Let's go, buddies and friends!!!
~ ian :-D

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