TechDAS showed a prototype of its new air bearing pivoted tonearm at Munich High End 2023. It's now a finished product that will have its North American launch at The Audio Salon in Santa Monica this Friday, and Saturday February 9th and 10th.In addition to the TechDAS team, Supersense's Florian "Doc" Caps will be there, most likely to play some of his lacquer releases, Wilson Audio's Peter McGrath will be there as well to extoll the virtues... Read More

Mastering engineer Chris Bellman has an impressive catalog of records he's mastered over the decades working at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood California. Bellman regularly cuts records for Neil Young among many other recording greats. Bellman talks about cutting Tom Petty's "Wildflowers" from analog tape for the first time and discusses with me general cutting issues such as sibilants and how he deals with them. The two discuss the great... Read More

Mark Knopfler's new album One Deep River— his tenth solo effort— is set for April 12th release on his own British Grove label, via Blue Note/EMI. It features a dozen new songs.Produced by Knopfler and his longstanding collaborator Guy Fletcher the album was recorded in London at his state-of-the-art British Grove Studios and will be available on CD, double gatefold vinyl, cassette and a special limited-edition box set that will include the album on both vinyl and... Read More

Oft sampled by soul and r&b music fans who couldn't get enough of Hayes's version of "Walk on By" and “Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic”when first issued in 1969 and decades later by hip-hop samplers who have (so far) used snippets more than a hundred times, Hot Buttered Soul has stood musical test of time and now gets the "Small Batch" "One-Step" audiophile treatment.From the press release:"As with all albums in the... Read More

With the box set nearly sold out, Intervention decided to offer the three Frampton albums individually at $40.00 each. The Frampton@50 Series 180G reissues are 100% Analog Mastered by Chris Bellman and sound sensational. The flat, heroically quiet 180g vinyl is pressed at boutique press Gotta Groove Records in Cleveland, Ohio.The album art was meticulously restored by IR's Tom Vadakan, and the jackets are "Old Style" tip-ons, beautiful produced on heavy... Read More

(This Interview originally appeared in Volume 3 #1, issue 11, Spring 1997 of The Tracking Angle magazine).The goodies were stacked on a big table in the corner of the stars' dressing room: an industrial size sack of M&M Peanuts, big bags of Herr's tortilla and potato chips, a jar of Pace brand Thick and Chunky Salsa, fresh fruit, a ten pack of Kellogg's cereals, a plate of muffins, a cheese, tomato and deli platter, jars of Hellman's mayonnaise... Read More

Deutsche Grammophon has jump-started the New Year with a vengeance, with the announcement of another set of drool-worthy vinyl reissues to tempt the classical listener (and, I hope, many of you seeking to dip your toe into the classical waters). Read on for more details....

The Supatrac Blackbird is the world's only tonearm with a Sideways Unipivot bearing (hence Supa—sideways Unipivot Arm). This has numerous theoretical advantages over a vertically positioned unipivot bearing, the basics of which are explained in this video. A more complete written review will be posted here shortly. This video shows you the arm and demonstrates its musical power reproducing Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", a track from Gary... Read More

Piccolo Zero is a transimpedance headamp designed to operate low internal impedance MC cartridges in current mode (zero input impedance). This mode is desirable for its improved tracking ability resulting in lower distortion and well controlled sonic presentation. The Piccolo Zero offers four internal switch selected gain levels and plugs into any MM phono stage. It joins the voltage based Piccolo in the Hagerman line. Read More

Keb Mo was released in 1994. Good to Be in 2022. One of the frustrating parts of being me is that people who know me (guitarist and Twisted Sister founder) and my history in the music business (and my age—71) think that I must have heard and have an opinion on just about everything (music wise) that was ever released since the 1950’’s! It is even more frustrating when an artist, who seems to have had a long career, especially in a genre that I thought I really knew,... Read More

Los Angeles, CA (January 16, 2024) – Craft Recordings announces the latest batch of reissues for the acclaimed Original Jazz Classics series, championed by both collectors and critics. The latest reissues include Cannonball Adderley & Bill Evans’ Know What I Mean?, Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers’ Caravan and Ron Carter’s Where?, all of which can be pre-ordered today. These new reissues feature lacquers cut from the original tapes (AAA) by Kevin Gray at... Read More

Rhino's "High Fidelity" series released last week a reissue of Television's classic "Marquee Moon" cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, using the original analog master tape. The reissue sounds great! Far better than the original pressing in terms of bass response, transient clarity and all of the audiophile "check marks" but, I argue, it's not likely what Tom Verlaine intended at all! That's partly due to the fact... Read More

The winner of the Rega Planar 3 50th Anniversary turntable is "Gary" from PA. That's all he wants you to know and of course we respect that. "Gary" subscribed to the site almost simultaneously with it going "live". We didn't pick him. The random number generator did, but it was a good call!Thanks to everyone who signed up back then and even those who signed up now just to try to snag the turntable. We appreciate your... Read More

This morning using a random number generator we picked the winner of the Rega Planar 3 50th Anniversary Edition Turntable. Thousands entered the contest, with each entrant getting a number. A random number generator chose the winner. Actually, we picked five numbers in case the winner was from overseas or the winner doesn't respond to being notified of the win.We are not going to name the individual now, pending permission to do so. If we don't hear back... Read More

The third record in the new Original Source Series box devoted to William Steinberg's BSO recordings brings us less well-known works by the great early 20th-century German composer Paul Hindemith. Less well-known they may be, but these recordings make the strongest possible case for this incredibly attractive and original music. Is this the secret gem lurking in the Steinberg box....?

Johnny Hallyday (1943-2017) was the stage name of Jean-Philippe Léo Smet. In a career spanning nearly 60 years, Hallyday released 79 albums and sold 110 million records. In the year 2000, he sang in front of the Eiffel Tower to a paying audience of about half a million people. And in 2017, nearly one million people showed up to watch his funeral procession. Hallyday's funeral service at the Church of Sainte Marie-Madeleine was attended by French President... Read More

William Steinberg was never one of the "Big Name" conductors, but he had a stellar career, working with every major orchestra in Europe and America. His recorded legacy is held in high esteem amongst collectors, and no more so than the three records he made for Deutsche Grammophon while Music Director of the renowned Boston Symphony Orchestra in the late 1960s, early 70s. So when it was announced that Deutsche Grammophon and Emil Berliner Studios would be issuing a special boxed edition of all three recordings as part of their ground-breaking Original Source Series of vinyl reissues, hopes for something truly special ran high. In the first of three articles we examine what makes each of these legendary records worthy of the deluxe OSS treatment, beginning with the grand-daddy of all orchestral spectaculars, Holst's The Planets. (For a recap of the background and technical processes behind these Original Source Series vinyl reissues, you can read TA's review of the first two records in this fourth batch of OSS releases).

Richard Strauss's epic orchestral tone poem, whose opening "Sunrise" captured the imaginations of millions when it was used in 2001: A Space Odyssey, here receives an outstanding recording. We explore the history of this work, which was written at a time of great change in classical music, and place Steinberg's interpretation within the history of this work on record.