Michael Fremer (born 1947)[2] is an American music journalist, YouTuber, and voice actor from New York City, known for writing about audiophile equipment and vinyl.[3] He is the editor of The Tracking Angle and Senior Editor at The Absolute Sound.[4][5] Due to his influence within the audiophile community, Fremer has been called the "Pied Piper of vinyl" and the "dean of audiophile writing."[3][6]
Michael Fremer | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1947 (age 74–75) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | journalist |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Cornell University[1] |
| Period | 1970s–present |
Fremer graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Industrial and Labor Relations in 1968[7] and worked as a radio DJ in Boston and New Jersey in the 1970s, when he began to write about music and audio equipment.[8] In the early 1980s, Fremer became a well known critic of the audio quality of compact discs and was a vocal proponent of analogue source material and vinyl records.[6]
In 1986, he was hired by The Absolute Sound as pop music editor.[6] During the 1990s, he ran his own magazine called The Tracking Angle.[6] For many years, he was the editor of Analog Planet and contributing editor at Stereophile and Sound&Vision.[9] In 2022 he left Analog Planet and returned to The Absolute Sound and, along with Nick Despotopoulos and David L’Heureux, revived The Tracking Angle as a website.[10] In 2022, he had a well-publicized spat with YouTuber and record store owner Michael Esposito regarding Mobile Fidelity's use of digital source material.[3]
In addition to his audiophile journalism, Fremer has done voice acting on films such as Animalympics and Felix the Cat: The Movie and supervised the soundtrack to Disney's Tron.[11]