October 5th, 2022
Unboxing the new ABKCO Rolling Stones 7" singles 1963-1966 Box Set+ U-Turn Theory View Nice box! And you'll see close up the just reviewed U-Turn Orbit Theory Turntable By: Michael FremerWe 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
Comments: 0October 5th, 2022
Hagerman Audio Labs Updates Bugle MC Phono Preamp 4th gen MM/MC eliminated DIP switches, adds upgrades By: Michael FremerThe 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
Comments: 0October 5th, 2022
Pro-Ject Introduces Power Box RS2 Power Supply Upgrade For Select Turntables and Phono Preamps fits 18-20V Pro-Ject phono stages and 15V D.C. turntables By: Michael FremerReplaces "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
Comments: 1October 5th, 2022
Pro-Ject Introduces New Debut PRO S Turntable features 10" "S" shaped aluminum arm, TPE-damped die-cast aluminum platter By: Michael FremerBusy 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
Comments: 0October 5th, 2022
Luxman America Introduces the PD-151 MkII Turntable replaces 151A and includes new LTA-309 knife-edge bearing tonearm By: Michael FremerThough 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
Comments: 0October 5th, 2022
Ry Cooder Scores: The Soundtrack Albums of Ry Cooder From the archives: Michael Fremer explores Ry Cooder's soundtrack work By: Michael Fremer(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
Comments: 0October 3rd, 2022
U-Turn’s Orbit “Theory” Turntable Executes Well In Practice A substantial upgrade for this decade old company By: Michael FremerU-Turn’s most ambitious and sophisticated turntable yet offers an impressive package of performance-enhancing features starting with a new one piece molded tapered magnesium 220 millimeter effective length, gimbal-bearing tonearm fitted with a pre-installed and aligned nude elliptical stylus Ortofon 2M Blue MM cartridge. The Theory adds electronic speed control that at the turn of a knob lets you change from 33 1/3 to 45rpm . More important than the convenience of it,... Read More
Comments: 1October 3rd, 2022
Bladee’s ‘Spiderr’ Is A Dizzying Spectacle Of Glitchy Excess This era's most enigmatic cult icon delivers his most confusing project yet By: Malachi LuiThe mystery of Bladee increases yet again. Never slowing down for anyone, the 28-year-old Swedish artist and Drain Gang leader returns with Spiderr, his second album this year after March’s Ecco2k collaboration, Crest. Bladee (Benjamin Reichwald) is this era’s most prolific and enigmatic cult icon, constantly evolving his aesthetic as legions of terminally online teenagers rush to copy his every move (and horrifically fail). Since his 2018 mixtape Icedancer, Bladee’s... Read More
Comments: 0October 1st, 2022
Temporal Drift Announces Les Rallizes Dénudés Reissues The radical Japanese band’s core discography receives desperately-needed reissues By: Malachi LuiThis 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
Comments: 0October 1st, 2022
"Creed Taylor: The Music Came First" Now Available For Streaming Tracking Angle editor has some FaceTime in doc along with Taylor, Ron Carter, Ashley Kahn, Herb Alpert and many others By: Michael FremerCreed 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
Comments: 0October 1st, 2022
The Latest (and Last) "Kind of Blue" The best-ever pressing of the best jazz album By: Fred Kaplan(Revised Sept 17, 2022)Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking: “What’s this now, another audiophile reissue of Kind of fu*king Blue?!” But here’s the thing: not only is this new one—pressed by Acoustic Sounds at 45rpm across two slabs of 200-gram UHQR Clarity vinyl—the best of the bunch; there almost certainly won’t be a better one for the foreseeable future.Not much need be said at this point about the 1959 Miles Davis classic: the best-selling jazz album of all time;... Read More
Comments: 1October 1st, 2022
The Editor Has Made an "Executive Decision" moves original content to the front of the queue By: Michael FremerDear 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
Comments: 0October 1st, 2022
John Lennon Once Put A Shitty Pressing Of His Music on Trial-- And Won! Years before the Mofi scandal, Jay Bergen's "Lennon, the Mobster, & the Lawyer" tells how the former Beatle used the good ol' shoot-out to show a federal judge how a shitty pressing hurt his reputation as an artist. By: Joshua SmithThe 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
Comments: 0October 1st, 2022
Ry Cooder & Taj Mahal Pay Tribute To Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee's Folkways LP Get On Board And Have A Great Time Doing It! By: Joseph W. WashekRy 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
Comments: 0October 1st, 2022
Uhuru Afrika---Randy Weston's Forgotten 1960 Masterpiece The Records You Didn't Know You Needed #12 By: Joseph W. WashekIn 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
Comments: 0October 1st, 2022
Every Audiophile Needs This Lou Reed Live Album! Lou Reed talks, and talks, and talks... in glorious binaural sound! By: Malachi LuiAs I paid $25 for an original US copy of Lou Reed’s 1978 live album Take No Prisoners, my local record shop owner said, “Enjoy it, man, I’ve never seen this record before. Plus it’s a promo.” Indeed it is: not only is there a sticker from Arista denoting it a DJ copy originally loaned for promotional use only, but there’s also a bold red hype sticker reading “SPECIALLY PRICED TWO-RECORD SET—All the raw excitement of Lou Reed-Live,” with quotes from the Chicago... Read More
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