Shortly after the conclusion of the 2018 International Consumer Electronics Show, Technics CTO/Chief Engineer Tetsuya (Tony) Itan, Yoshiyuki Sumida, Assistant Manager Technics Team, and Technics Business Development Manager Bill Voss brought over and installed the new Technics SL-1000R turntable and tone arm for a week's stay. While this was a pre-production sample and not suitable for a full review, I thought you would be interested in first impressions that is not a review.

Howard Stern is probably today's best interviewer still standing now that Charlie Rose is sidelined, though his recent Robert Plant sit-down was among his least effective. Stern was so looking forward to having Plant in the studio that he sort of forgot why Plant agreed to visit in the first place. Plus his usually crack research team dropped the ball.

At CES 2018 optical cartridge maker DS Audio introduced the ST-50 an elegant-looking "pad" type stylus cleaner that uses a transparent urethane pad developed for semi-conductor "clean room" air scrubbing.

A few issues ago, Sam Tellig gently mocked me with a comment about mobile record players. For those of you too young to remember, or who thought he was kidding, here's a photo of the late, great Lawrence Welk enjoying "Highway Hi-Fi" in his 1956 DeSoto convertible. The players, made by CBS-Columbia for Chrysler, featured a new 7" format record, the XLP, which provided up to 45 minutes per side thanks to its 16²/₃rpm speed and its pitch of 550 grooves per inch—twice the density of a standard LP. Playback required a special 0.25-mil stylus tracking at 2.5gm—about half a gram less pressure than, say, a $7600 Clearaudio Insider needs to track a regular LP in your living room! A flywheeled motor (there's nothing new under the sun) kept the 'table's speed stable under impossible conditions, and an ingenious arm design supposedly kept the stylus in the groove even around hairpin turns.

Concord's Craft Records division just released a deluxe two LP box set of Sonny Rollins' Way Out West recorded in March of 1957 in stereo and released by Contemporary Records first in mono in 1957 and then by Stereo Records (in association with Contemporary Records) in stereo probably in 1958 or perhaps later.

Novelist Douglas Kennedy described himself as a "jazz junkie" in a 2016 New York Times profile. After reading it, Newvelle Records co-founder Elan Mehler got in touch. Kennedy quickly responded.

Maybe Phil Spector was right. The legendary record producer was (and probably still is) a mono fan. Brian Wilson is said to have originally mixed the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds in mono because that's the way he heard it, due to a childhood hearing problem, but Spector's reasons were aesthetic, not medical. He simply preferred the way his complex, grandiose productions sounded when wedged into a single channel.

The cover art for British jazz vocalist and trumpeter Peter Horsfall's recently released LP makes clear the music's moody, lonely-at-night feel. There's always hope though, embodied in his cover of pianist Barry Harris's "Paradise", which you can listen to below, transcribed via the new Technics SL-1000R turntable fitted with an Ortofon A95.

My friend musician Eric Leefe will play The Klipsch Audio Mainstage at Cleveland's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this Friday January 26th at 2PM.

Mobile Fidelity just announced the availability for order of its Bridge Over Troubled Water reissue, produced as a limited to 7500 copies "one-step" double 45rpm release.