We now can add embedded videos to stories so here's the latest YouTube video unboxing the Rolling Stones 7" 1963-1966 45rpm singles and EP box set plus a closer look at the new U-Turn Orbit Theory turntable reviewed elsewhere on this site. Read More

The 4th generation Bugle MC Phono preamp from Hagerman Audio Labs eliminated DIP switches and moves gain and loading switches to the front panel. As the specs below indicate, the Bugle has plenty of gain for all but the very lowest MC cartridge. The previous iterations were encased in plastic. This new one is in an aluminum chassis, which probably makes for a better shielded enclosure. The price is a very reasonable $249.00Specifications40/52/58/64dB gain... Read More

Replaces "wall warts" with linear power supply that includes a large toroidal transformer. Blurb says: "A linear power supply consists of a massive toroidal transformer which disallows interference from the mains to negatively impact the performance of your audio gear. The built-in transformer has a much higher power reserve compared to the standard power adapter. It has very low output impedance and in combination with a large filtration capacity, it... Read More

Busy Pro-Ject just announced yet another new turntable. The $1,199 Debut PRO S features a new 10" "S" shaped arm that includes a CNC-machined nickel-plated bearing block, removable headshell and adjustable VTA/SRA and azimuth. Also included is a die-cut aluminum platter and aluminum sub-platter.Platter removed to show subplatterThe minimalist-looking turntable features built-in electronic speed control and 33 1/3/45 push of a button control as well as... Read More

Though it was shown at last Spring's Chicago AXPONA show and has been available overseas for awhile, Luxman America last month began distribution of its now PD-151 MKII turntable, which replaces the well-regarded 151A. The new model features a new, original LTA-309 tonearm featuring a knife-edge bearing originally developed by the classic Japanese brand SAEC. The new static-balanced arm features a machined aluminum arm base and VTA/SRA adjustability.The 3 speed... Read More

(This piece originally appeared in slightly different form in Issue 73, the September/October 1991 issue of The Absolute Sound. It has been edited and updated for Issue 5/6 of The Tracking Angle, Winter 1995/96.)Beginning with his eponymous 1970 debut, and continuing throughout 11 Warner Brothers solo albums, Ry Cooder has demonstrated that in addition to being an extraordinary folk/blues guitarist—particularly on bottleneck—and a serviceable though hardly... Read More

This week, Temporal Drift announced the first official CD and vinyl reissues of Japanese psychedelic rock band Les Rallizes Dénudés' three-album discography. Originally released on limited edition CDs in 1991, this series marks the first official vinyl and digital releases of these seminal recordings.The three albums—’67-'69 Studio et Live, Mizutani / Les Rallizes Dénudés, and ’77 Live—capture the band from their formation to their artistic height, and were... Read More

Creed Taylor produced records are no doubt among your most treasured, whether on CTI, which he founded in 1967, or Verve or other labels in which he was involved. Taylor passed away Augusts 22nd, 2022 at age 93. The recently released documentary "Creed Taylor, The Music Came First" is now available as a free, high resolution stream on the Snapshots Music and Arts Foundation website. If you click on "Vimeo" from that site you can watch full screen... Read More

Dear Tracking Angle reader: the site has been live for a few weeks now with both new and "vintage" content. We hope you are enjoying both. However, as we post more "vintage" content and new readers arrive, they have to "dig" to find the new content, so, I've decided to move all of the new content to the front of the line and push the old (but equally interesting and useful) content to the back. This is a onetime move but for now... Read More

The year was 1976, long before "hot stampers" were even a thing. John Lennon presided over a good old-fashioned record pressing shoot-out-- in federal court, no less. The pressings played in the Southern District of New York's federal courthouse had songs familiar to lovers of Lennon's ROCK 'N' ROLL album, his beautiful homage to early rock and roll, but the two albums' quality couldn't have been farther apart. The first... Read More

Ry Cooder, in 1959, when he was 12 bought a copy of a ten inch record on an odd label with an amateurish paste-on cover and mimeographed liner notes tucked inside. The record was Get On Board by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, two middle aged Black men who had been playing blues for Black audiences for more than two decades, but now, probably to their own surprise, were becoming popular with young white people. Cooder began listening and woodshedding and we know the... Read More

In 1960, often referred to as “The Year of Africa,” seventeen former French and British colonies in Africa became free, independent nations. In the U.S., in February 1960, the struggle of Black Americans to attain the civil rights which had been promised them by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, entered a more aggressive, confrontational phase when in Greenville, North Carolina Black students, frustrated and angered by the slow progress in ending segregation,... Read More

Readers on this website might be most familiar with me for my classical music reviews, but the breadth of music I enjoy and collect spans far beyond the purview of Bartok and Brahms. Japanese popular music has long been one of my particular interests. I tracked down my first Dir en grey CDs way back in middle school, and since that time over the last 15 or so years, I’ve been steadily importing physical media from the land of the rising sun. My journey has been long... Read More

This report was originally written in 1994 for The Absolute Sound and never published there. Please keep the date in mind as you read it!–Ed.Everything was out of joint this year (though not out of joints – judging by the odors emanating from some parked cars around the Sahara bi-level), from the unusually cold wet weather – it rained almost every day – to the thoroughly bizarre product mix at The Saharaʼs bi-level complex High End audio exhibits. Who would have dared... Read More