February 6th, 2025
A Visit to Kevin Gray's Cohearent Recording Studio inspired by RVG's Hackensack home studioBy: Michael Fremer
While in California last week working on a project for Mack Avenue Records (more about that soon) I visited Kevin Gray's Cohearent Mastering. That interview related to the Mack Avenue Records project will appear soon but for now, while at Kevin's I asked to see his home-based recording studio, inspired by Rudy Van Gelder's Prospect Avenue, Hackensack home studio in use until he moved in 1959 to the big one in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. He obliged. It's... Read More
October 6th, 2024
Take the Kuzma Factory Tour in Kranj, Slovenia see how Kuzma manufactures tonearms and turntablesBy: Michael Fremer
I flew to Slovenia Monday evening, September 30th and returned home on October 2nd. It was a short trip during which Franc Kuzma gave me a factory tour and I spoke to an international group of Kuzma distributors from the U.K., China, India, the U.K. and Turkey among other locales. Kuzma the company has been in business for 40 plus years, manufacturing premium turntables and tonearms, and more recently phono cartridges and a series of accessories.The Stabi S turntable... Read More
July 15th, 2024
Lacquer Plating Secrets With Record Technology Incorporated "Plating Guru" Dorin Sauerbier a great deal to see and hear in this video! (top photo from 2008 RTI visit)By: Michael Fremer
Record plating is the "secret sauce" behind great sounding records. A great lacquer cut can be sabotaged by inept plating. Only a handful of experienced experts know how best to do this, aided by the finest infrastructure. RTI's plating expert Dorin Sauerbier is one of the world's best and the infrastructure he's built at RTI over the past 20 plus years helps produce some of the world's best stampers and thus some of the world's best... Read More
July 14th, 2024
Fidelity Record Pressing Opens Its Doors to Tracking Angle a video tour you are sure to enjoyBy: Michael Fremer
Fidelity Record Pressing, a partnership between Music Direct's Jim Davis and pressing plant veteran Rick Hashimoto and his son Edward, opened its brand new Oxnard, CA pressing plant to invited guests Friday, May 17th. I'd returned from Munich High End on the 15th after being away since the 7th of May so the idea of getting back on a plane the next day and flying cross country to attend on the 17th was out of the question. So I did something even more insane.... Read More
June 23rd, 2024
HSE Swiss Surprise Visit Following Munich High End 2024 HSE manufactures the Masterline ML 7 phono preamplifierBy: Michael Fremer
Some things were "meant" to be. Following High End Munich i spent a few days in Switzerland that included a visit to Micha Huber's HiFiction factory in Turbenthal. The video tour includes the launch of the new Thales Magnifier phono preamp/preamp. Early in the afternoon, following the tour, I overheard two of HiFiction's distributors talk about driving to Schlieren to visit HSE Swiss, manufacturer of, among other products, the Masterline 7 phono... Read More
May 31st, 2024
HiFiction Launches Thales Magnifier MC Phono Preamp/Preamplifier at Turbenthal, Switzerland Event plus factory tourBy: Michael Fremer
Directly following Munich High End 2024 I drove with a friend to Switzerland and the next day attended along with some of Hi Fiction's international distributors a classical music concert of music by Dietrich Buxtehude performed by a quartet at a small, ancient church hosted by HiFiction's Micha Huber. It was a pleasant respite from the four days of show craziness!The next day at the Turbenthal factory, the company introduced its new Magnifier moving coil... Read More
December 25th, 2023
Visit "Boutique" Onyx Record Press In Arcadia, CA watch a press being "fired up" and pressing the morning's first recordBy: Michael Fremer
Note: This is a revised video necessitated because proprietary hardware and software was inadvertently presented. Both have now been either blurred or edited out.At the beginning of December while in Los Angeles to attend the 30th anniversary Los Angeles and Orange County Audiophile Society GALA, where every year I "roast" the Founder's Award winner (this year it was AudioQuest's Bill Low), I received an invitation from a publicist to visit Gil... Read More
October 1st, 2023
Tour Record Industry, in Haarlem, The Netherlands—One of the World's Largest Record Pressing Plants it's bigger and better than it was during our visit more than a decade agoBy: Michael Fremer
During the just concluded "Making Vinyl" symposium 9/28-9/29, 2023 in Haarlem, The Netherlands, Record Industry, one of the world's largest pressing plants, opened its tours to attendees and conducted tours all Friday afternoon. TrackingAngle will have full "Making Vinyl" coverage coming up over the next few days.The approximately 6500 square meter Record Industry originated in 1958 as privately held Artone—which remains the name of the studio... Read More
September 27th, 2023
Furnace Record Pressing Opens Up For Tracking Angle third tour's the charmBy: Michael Fremer
Eric Astor, Furnace Record Pressing President and CEO invited me to tour the plant for the second time. The first time was a few years ago when the company was just setting up shop in the Alexandria, Virginia building that formerly housed The Washington Post's printing presses. During that first visit, Furnace was still shaking out the vintage Toolex Alpha presses it had purchased in Mexico plus it had added a few new WarmTone presses. This new tour shows... Read More
August 30th, 2023
Clearaudio electronic GmbH, Erlangen, Germany Celebrates 45th Anniversary With Party and Factory Tour a week before High End Munich 2023, Clearaudio threw a partyBy: Michael Fremer
Last Spring, 2023 Clearaudio, a company best known for it's turntables, tonearms, phono cartridges and record cleaning machines celebrated its 45th anniversary. Rather than mounting its usual large High End Munich main floor exhibit, the company chose to throw a big party before the show for its distributors around the world and for others who would normally have met with them at the High End show to do business. The cozy restaurant attached to the Inn in which... Read More
August 24th, 2023
Tracking Angle Visits Paul Gold's Salt Mastering In Greenpoint, Bklyn, N.Y. veteran disc cutter has studio filled with cool stuffBy: Michael Fremer
Veteran disc mastering engineer Paul Gold runs Salt Mastering out of a small, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, N.Y. studio crammed with tape machines—including a few rare and unusual ones you'll have to watch the video to see— and a pair of Neumann lathes. He contacted me to say he's just completed a "shaker console" he's been working on for fifteen years! And he thought I'd enjoy seeing it. I did. It's not like Shaker furniture. Gold goes back... Read More
July 23rd, 2023
Our Man In Seattle, Michael Trochalakis Visits KLAUDiO's Peter Cheon at His Koolance Headquarters no manufacturing here, but Peter's vintage gear and vintage gear replicas will interest youBy: Michael Trochalakis
Michael had such a good time interviewing Peter at the Seattle Audio Fest, he got himself invited to the Koolance warehouse where he saw all of Peter's vintage and replica vintage audio gear along with a few new KLAUDiO products. Also interesting was seeing Peter's "real" business, which involves industrial water management and cooling systems. Mr. Cheon has 200+ products he's designed in his line, many of which are patented. This is a short,... Read More
Following "Making Vinyl" in Minneapolis, which was the best-attended most significant of these events (though the one at Hansa Studios in Berlin was the most exciting) and attended by 500 industry people from around the world, I took a short Uber ride from downtown Minneapolis to Audio Research inMaple Grove.Managing Director Dave Gordon took me on an "after hours" tour of the factory you're sure to enjoy. The company moved to this somewhat... Read More
June 6th, 2023
Tracking Angle Visits CH Precision in Préverenges, Switzerland tour includes visit to "board stuffing" factory, and metal fabrication and anodizing facilityBy: Michael Fremer
Following High End Munich, I took a train ride to Zurich, Switzerland with members of the CH team: CEO and founder Florian Cossy, publicist Louise Ford, Head of International Sales, Kevin Wolff, and software developer Eduard Kohler. Then, in a whirlwind visit to the heart of Swiss watch making territory, I toured CH Precision in Préverenges as well as Telsa, the company that does CH's "board stuffing". Also in this video you'll see the machine shop... Read More
January 1st, 2023
TrackingAngle Visits darTZeel Audio, Geneva Switzerland a move into a much larger manufacturing facility in the heart of watchmaking heavenBy: Michael Fremer
Last summer, while visiting Geneva to attend the Montreux Jazz Festival and produce a Nagra factory tour I also visited darTZeel Audio's brand new manufacturing facility. The company had just moved from its old funky loft location into this brand new, modern cooperative facility and CEO Hervé Delétraz was anxious to show it to me. The Lake Geneva photo was taken from the air as my plane approached the airport.Delétraz had arranged with his friends at Nagra to... Read More
October 24th, 2022
VPI House Tour With TrackingAngle Editor Michael Fremer on assignment from The Absolute Sound I toured the VPI House and met with Alta Audio's Mike LevyBy: Michael Fremer
A tour of the VPI House in Matawan, N.J. and a full introduction to both the company's latest turntable line-up and Alta Audio speaker offerings explained by designer and owner Mike Levy.
Read MoreOctober 17th, 2022
Tour Wilson Audio Specialties With Tracking Angle Editor Michael Fremer thanks to The Absolute Sound for sharing this videoBy: Michael Fremer
In early September Tracking Angle editor Michael Fremer flew to Salt Lake City, Utah and then took a car ride to Wilson Audio Specialties in Provo, Utah, where on assignment, he shot this factory tour video with assistance from TAS's Lee Scoggins. TAS's Charles Kinder expertly assembled the raw footage to produce this fascinating tour. If you've never seen how capacitors are made by hand you'll see it here. Of course, that's but a small part... Read More