Courtney Barnett is an Australian national treasure. The singer-songwriter’s musical style places the listener within her wandering stream of consciousness, unsheathing layers of raw vulnerability and playful wit. Her 10+ year career isn’t limited to several full-length studio efforts. It also includes a handful of EPs, an instrumental ambient film score, and a collaborative album with Philadelphia’s ‘constant hitmaker’ Kurt Vile. Creature of Habit isn’t only the... Read More

The final tally wasn't required for anyone and everyone in attendance at AXPONA 2026 to know that this show was the best attended AXPONA ever and by a considerable margin. The crowd was 15% larger than last year and the younger demographic—a 52% increase in Gen Z passes—fueled a high energy vibe that began Friday morning and continued throughout the show's three day run.(lead photo show YG Acoustics/Moon Audio big room)The crowd was younger and more diverse,... Read More

Here’s a quick-and-dirty definition of the concept of "Pareto Optimality":

When an item costs only 20% of the price of
the most-expensive similar product,
but it is nonetheless the case that the bargain
product has performance about 80% as good.

John Marks now considers whether Bryston Ltd.'s "Mini" T10 might be Pareto-Optimal.

It’s always interesting to see how bands grow up, especially a band whose younger work is as juvenile as Blink-182’s. In this case, drummer Travis Barker is now dating a Kardashian, bassist/co-frontman Mark Hoppus seems to have a fairly normal existence podcasting and working on other bands’ records, and guitarist/other co-frontman Tom DeLonge co-founded To The Stars, a company dedicated to multimedia investigation and promotion of ufology, for which he has directed... Read More

If you think any high-performance audio company has designed, manufactured and marketed a “straight wire with gain” preamplifier, I’ve got a bridge rectifier in Brooklyn to sell you. All I’ve heard sound different from one another, some less “colored” and more transparent and neutral sounding than others, some quieter and more dynamic than others, but all impart on the output a sonic character of one kind or another—and I’m all for that. Everything “sounds” so... Read More

Rule number one: every documentary has an angle. I’ve experienced how a “rock doc” can rewrite its subject’s history. In the twilight of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter Jackson’s radical re-edit (his angle) of Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s Let It Be footage swept a touch-starved Beatles fanbase. The joy! The memes! Glyn Johns’s fabulous outfits! Jackson’s presentation of the Get Back project fundamentally changed the narrative of the Beatles’ January 1969 sessions.

From the moment Queen broke onto the music scene in the early 1970s, they were almost light-years ahead of their contemporaries. Their own brand of ‘regal rock’ was fearless, testing the boundaries of recording technology by layering harmonies and instrumentation. As if their self-titled debut from 1973 was a raucous slab that honed in on Queen’s initial hard rock foundation, the follow-up would become a major sonic leap. Queen II, released in March 1974, was as far... Read More

Songs for Swingin’ Lovers is the second in Blue Note’s Tone Poet series of new vinyl remasterings that I hope will eventually include all sixteen concept albums for Capitol Records that Frank Sinatra recorded between 1953 and 1962. His fourth album[1] after signing with the label in 1953, it followed Songs for Young Lovers and Swing Easy! (both 1954) and In the Wee Small Hours (1955). Like Wee Small Hours, it became a landmark in Sinatra’s career as entertainer,... Read More

No, I did not begin listening to this cartridge with Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album so let's get that out of the way. Aidas is a Lithuania-based company O&O by Aidas Swazis. He began in the late '90s repairing and rebuilding cartridges and in 2010 launched the AS-1, his first bespoke design. Over the years he's updated and upgraded the suspensions, coils and core geometry. The current lineup dating from 2020 features four series that all use the... Read More

(April 2, 2026 - Los Angeles, CA) Rhino High Fidelity (Rhino Hi-Fi) returns today with two limited-edition audiophile vinyl reissues—one of a band breaking through and the other of a band about to break apart—The J. Geils Band’s “Live” Full House and Uncle Tupelo’s Anodyne.Both albums were cut from the original master tapes by Kevin Gray and pressed on 180-gram black vinyl at Optimal in Germany. Each features glossy gatefold packaging with tip-on jackets and newly... Read More

In collaboration with The Vinyl Factory, OJAS Music aims to bring a new kind of music into your listening room: minimalist, experimental, neo-classical and truly audiophile. The Deep Listen. It's punching all the buzzword buttons, but how does this first release stack up?

Includes a brief survey of early and notable works combining acoustic instruments with taped and live electronics, and recorded/sampled elements - similar to procedures used on this album.

Also includes details of upcoming live shows by Michael A. Muller, including at Common Wave Hi-Fi in Los Angeles this Thursday, April 2nd.

Miles Davis’ earliest masterpiece Birth Of The Cool gets the royal treatment with a new Tone Poet Vinyl Edition to be released by Blue Note Records on May 22 in celebration of the legendary trumpeter’s Centennial. Produced by Joe Harley, the album was mastered by Kevin Gray directly from the original analog phono reel master tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl at Record Technology Inc. (RTI), and packaged in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket featuring session photos by William... Read More

Throughout the past few years here at the Tracking Angle, Mark, Paul, and myself have covered a wide breadth of the audiophile classical reissues coming to the market. Inevitably, a few of them have drawn comparisons to what we often claim are the gold standards of orchestral recording: RCA "Living Stereo". When you think about “Audiophile Classical”, these records are what spring to mind thanks to the legacy of writers such as Harry Pearson and Sid Marks.... Read More

There’s a type of loudspeaker that doesn’t try to win me over in the first few minutes. It doesn’t sparkle under showroom lights or carve out hyper-detailed sonics to grab my attention. Instead, it sits there—quietly confident—waiting for me to meet it halfway. The Trenner & Friedl RA v3 is that kind of speaker.Designed by Austrian partners Andreas Friedl and Peter Trenner, the RA v3 feels less like a conventional hi-fi product and more like something shaped by... Read More

Decca has just released a remastered collection on CD of Antal Doráti’s complete cycle of the Haydn Symphonies - a landmark achievement in the history of the gramophone.  This new set includes the appendices and extras, together with three additional oratorios also recorded by Doráti for Decca.  In Part 2, I continue my exploration of this still remarkable set with a detailed account of the events leading up to Decca launching the project project, the recording sessions, and a review of the performances in their new revitalized sonics. (You can read Part 1 here).

Decca has just released a remastered collection on CD of Antal Doráti’s complete cycle of the Haydn Symphonies - a landmark achievement in the history of the gramophone.  This new set includes the appendices and extras, together with three additional oratorios also recorded by Doráti for Decca.  I explore every facet of this still remarkable set: its history, how it was recorded, and its significance in the larger universe of Haydn recordings.  And, of course, how it sounds in its new incarnation.  This is also the story of my own journey in the appreciation of Haydn’s music - from disinterested skeptic to passionate fan. (You can read Part 2 here).

A buddy of mine sent me “Trinidad” when it leaked last summer. I should’ve loved it. There’s feedback, there are horns. And there’s this kid who sounds like a trombone waking up in the morning. Cameron Winter’s voice is a wiley, unpredictable instrument. Who – or what – is responsible for this? Having Television, Radiohead, and Ween on the same iPod as a thirteen-year-old? It’s either an instant turn-off or a temporary one. I tapped out after a minute-and-a-half.

Before getting to the music, here are the mysteries: the first is that though the insert shows the Ampex 499 master tape box in full sized glory with an orange sticker indicating it was baked on July 24th 2017 (as best as I can make the date out) and the 30IPS tapes are fully assembled side A and B reels, this reissue was cut from a high resolution digital file. Why? The Capitol "UDiscovermusic" website says that all records in the Vinylphyle series are cut... Read More