On June 10th, 2019 Newvelle Records hosted an event at world famous Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs New Jersey where "reluctant/later bloomer" pianist Billy Lester performed for a small audience of friends, family and press. A film about Lester was also screened. The thumbnail photo is of Newville's co-founder and a pianist himself, Elan Mehler. The jazz label had just issued Lester's album From Scratch on vinyl, with Lester performing in a... Read More

If you are in the New York metro area, on September 19th Innovative Audio is hosting an album release party for Patrick Leonard's new album It All Comes Down to Mood. Patrick will be there and following playback of the entire album on the big Wilson Chronosonic XVX speakers Patrick Leonard and I will talk about it's creation, the musicians like Tony Levin, Martin Barre and others who participated and if there's time, Patrick's incredible... Read More

Newvelle's Elan Mehler was kind enough to give Tracking Angle an exclusive on this press release and offer. Since there are but 500 copies pressed, here's the story: The legendary Little Freddie King returns to Newvelle Records with a stripped down - and decidedly different - sound. The blues titan appears here just a few years following his acclaimed release Going Upstairs but now in raw, unadorned form. Paul DeFiglia on upright bass and Bobby Lewis on harp... Read More

Patrick Leonard and his wife Anna stopped by today (she piloted her plane to Teterboro airport) to discuss promotional plans for the soon to be available album It All Comes Down to Mood, which debuted July 26th on Apple Music and is available for pre-order at Acoustic Sounds, Music Direct and Elusive Disc. The couple also got a chance to hear the album on my system.After playing most of side two of the four sides, Patrick said he wants to mix his next record here. He... Read More

Would you like to attend a recording session at Rudy Van Gelder's legendary Englewood Cliffs studio featuring saxophone great Joe Lovano? Of course you would! I was lucky enough to attend one—the only invited journalist—last May 19th, four days after returning from Switzerland following High End 2024. Here's the story. The old audiophile riddle "How do you make $1,000,000 in the audio business? Answer: "start with $2,000,000" didn't... Read More

125,000 views of Steely Dan's "Gaucho" played back on Wilson-Benesch's GMT One turntable made clear that people enjoy listening to top quality vinyl playback, even degraded as it is by YouTube's meh bit rate audio. So here's another one: David Bowie's "Fashion" from his 1980 album Scary Monsters, Super Creeps from an original U.K. Townhouse mastered pressing. The record is not a "minty" copy but it still sounds... Read More

Before returning the Wilson Beseech GMT One turntable I recorded a few additional tracks including this one: "Walk on the Wild Side" from an original American pressing that I've owned and played since 1972. Mick Ronson's arranging skills played a significant role in the success of this record, musically and commercially. It was recorded at Trident in London and the sound is superbly natural. When those backup gals do their "do do do...."... Read More

These 1959 European tour recordings have often been bootlegged with Rollins not getting royalties. This box rights that wrong and presents the piano-less trio in the best possible sound. It's not "audiophile" quality but it's decent enough mono, professionally recorded and not the result of a microphone hung from a ceiling.There's something rock'n'roll about sax, bass and drums, especially when Rollins leads the trio and this trio is... Read More

The Impex 1Step Getz/Gilberto review included 30 second hi-res "snippets" of seven different pressings: an early original, the 1994 Mobile-Fidelity, the Speakers Corner mastered by Kevin Gray, two George Marino mastered versions (45rpm released 2011 and the 33 1/3 issued in 2020), the Supersense lacquer and of course Impex's 1Step double 45.And here's which was which:1. MOFI2. Speaker’s Corner3. OG4. Impex 5) AP 45 6) lacquer 7) AP 33And there you... Read More

Thanks to everyone who listened to the Blackbird/SAT files and weighed in on which they thought sounded better. If you read through all of the comments you found that opinions varied, which is to be expected. That one arm costs around $3500 and the other more than $50,000 tells you how fine (and surprising) is the Blackbird's performance. Over the next few weeks three more arms will be put to a similar test—two are from Pro-Ject and one is from Ortofon. So stay... Read More

It is only fair to give you an "apples to apples" comparison. So, here's the same Bill Cunliffe Live at Bernie's Direct-to-Disc track recorded twice: once with the SAT CF1-12/Lyra Atlas Lambda SL combo into the just reviewed van den Hul The Grail SX and again with the Supatrac Blackbird/Lyra Atlas Lambda SL combo into the van den Hul The Grail SX.The only variable this time is the tonearm. It's now "C" and "D".BUT: This... Read More

About a year has passed since publication of the KLAUDIO ultrasonic cleaning machine review so now's a good time to tell you how it's been working and how well it cleans records. Also, this is a good time to again cover some basics because there's so much online nonsense and misinformation, though it's also true that well-informed opinions sometimes differ.This machine has had, as you can imagine, a great deal of use. Daily use. Not... Read More

This comparison was more for entertainment value than anything especially since the cartridges mounted in each arm were different! Let's start there. The comparison was between a $4395 cartridge and one costing $14,295 and an arm costing around $3700 versus one costing around $60,000. The phono preamp was the the $28,995 van den Hul The Grail SX (review will shortly be published). I could not use the CH Precision P10 because it is across the way installed for use... Read More

Opened just the other month, Technics' new café in downtown Kyoto is a minimalist space dedicated to the pleasure of listening to records on the company's latest and greatest equipment. Join us for a quick tour.

Win the Rega Planar 3 50th Anniversary Edition recently reviewed on this website! According to importer Sound Organization, this is the last one made available to them, though there may be one or two lurking at dealers. Tracking Angle is giving it away to a lucky reader, one string attached. Read on!Here are the contest rules:1) you must join our mailing list to enter the contest. It's free and easy to do—just click on the Mailing List Signup" rectangle at... Read More

Model trains are a Christmas tradition. But a real steam train traveling on the New Jersey Transit commuter line at almost 80 MPH is a rare and amazing thing not likely to be repeated but it did happen back in the fall of 1996 and I was lucky enough to take the trip from Hoboken to Port Jervis with my late father in law who worked on the railroads as a kid during the Depression. Half way through the ride to Port Jervis soot clogged the camcorder microphone so for this... Read More