This has been an incredible week of traveling around Europe visiting audio and vinyl manufacturers and losing my luggage twice.

Wouldn’t pairing a highly talented bluesman with one of the best house bands in the world result in a great record?

In advance of Munich High End 2019 Ortofon announced a new "flagship" moving coil cartridge the Anna Diamond that features a diamond cantilever and a Replicant100 stylus. Based on the specs, what's "under the hood" appears to be similar to that of the limited edition, now sold out MC Century.

Following opening remarks by Making Vinyl co-founder Larry Jaffee, Record Store Day founder Michael Kurtz opens programming on day two of "Making Vinyl" Berlin followed by British, French, Italian and Dutch RSD organizers to give you a detailed picture of the continent's activities on this past April's Record Store Day.

You do not want to miss the entertaining, informative and important "Making Vinyl" day two keynote address with visuals by Sony Music Entertainment International Services Co-Managing Director Gerhard Blum.

I arrived in Berlin early Wednesday morning and was picked up by a fellow named Frank Wonneberg, who I didn't really know, though I think we may have met years earlier at the High End Show when it was in Frankfurt, probably in 1996. He offered to pick me up and take me to the hotel, which was beyond kind. He also took me on a tour of Berlin. It was May 1st, which is a holiday in Germany so the streets were open though there were tourists and others at the big sights. I saw the Reichstag, and other similar touristy spots but Frank also took me to some amazing record-centric spots that few people know about including a small, run down little car repair joint that once was where the Odeon record label started in the early 20th century. It's where two sided records were born.

In a pre-Munich press release, SAT announced the debut in Munich of its new XD1 Record Player System that will be presented in room F214 in Atrium 4 along with Marten Audio loudspeakers.

The two day event "Making Vinyl" Berlin begins Thursday, May 2nd. Munich High-End 2019 begins Thursday May 9th. What to do in between?

This was supposed to be my report on analog gear at Home Entertainment 2004 West. The San Francisco show was canceled because of a hotel-workers’ lockout, but my column wasn’t! Fortunately, I’d gotten an early start on what was to be next month’s column because I wanted to actually get ahead on the audio-reviewing assembly line. No such luck.