The second edition of "Making Vinyl" was an even greater success than last year's, which was plenty good. Following Record Store Day founder Michael Kurtz's panel "Record Store Day 11 Years Later", AnalogPlanet.com editor Michael Fremer ran "New Vinyl Plants Fire Up the Presses", which you can watch here. (Photo: Discogs sandwich of Jeffrey Smith and Sean Cannon).

Ortofon celebrated its 100th anniversary September 28th and 29th, inviting approximately 60 of its sales and technology partners from around the world to a hotel in Maribo, Denmark and to its factory in nearby Nakskov.

AnalogPlanet editor Michael Fremer was invited to observe the celebration and to participate by presenting to the guests and company executives a ½ hour PowerPoint presentation outlining where the vinyl record and analog playback gear market has been for the past 30 or so years, and to where he thought it was headed in the future.

November 9, November 9, November 9: On November 9, Apple Corps/UMe will release multiple deluxe editions of The Beatles, the seminal self-titled double album affectionately known, due to its stark packaging, as “The White Album.”

When I came upon Giuseppe Viola's handiwork at the 2000 Top Audio Show in Milan, Italy, I said to myself, "Here's a guy with a fabulous machine shop and too much time on his hands." Most designers are satisfied to introduce a turntable. Not Viola. At Top Audio, under the V.Y.G.E.R. name, he introduced a whole line of hand-built, air-bearing tonearms and turntables. When I met the gregarious Giuseppe (aka "Pino") later that day, he came across as a most enthusiastic, gnome-like character, eager to demonstrate his gleaming creations and explain their workings.

Viola had much to be proud of: He'd developed a massive, true air-bearing platter—one that "floated," both radially and axially, on a thin film of air . . .

The Blood on the Tracks story is familiar to Dylan fans: the album was recorded in New York City in four days, September, 1974. It was mastered and review copies circulated. Months later (late December) Dylan decided the approach was wrong and re-recorded five tracks at Minneapolis Sound 80 Studios. Bootleggers circulated outtakes from the New York sessions but they’ve never been available legitimately until now.

Felt mats have never been known for audiophile-grade sound, but how do they fare against each other? Can you hear differences among them?

Whether it's to offer a "relaxed fit" to make life easier for analog lovers, or because both Scan-Tech and Immutable Music believe that they've found a way to offer better performance with higher output, the Lyra Titan ($5000) and Transfiguration Temper W ($4000) offer considerably higher output than the "statement' models they replace.

In a July 2nd story, we announced four new costly arms from SAT(Swedish Analog Technologies): two models each available in 9" and 12" versions. The least expensive of the four, the LM-09 was reviewed in the just shipped October, 2018 Stereophile.

Sad to report the passing of legendary loudspeaker designer/innovator Siefried Linkwitz. Mr. Linkwitz had been suffering with prostate cancer for some time and had been receiving home hospice care.

I first spotted this chrome-trimmed beauty in the UK a few years ago, when Avid still had no American importer. The opportunity to review it finally arose last January, right after CES, and while I still had the SME 30/2 turntable. The $10,000 Avid Acutus is every bit as deserving of a full review as the 30/2—I am reviewing it in "Analog Corner" only because this is my best chance of getting a review into print so soon after my March 2003 report on the SME.