It’s doubtful Pro-Ject could have produced a high performance, feature packed, beautiful to look at turntable like the Classic SB Superpack and priced it so reasonably ($1499 including $449 Blue Point No. 2 cartridge) were it not for surging turntable sales and Pro-Ject’s place at the top of the high performance turntable market (“high performance” meaning not counting the plastic mass market cheapies).

Alto saxophonist Paul Desmond (Paul Emil Breitenfeld) best known for his work with Dave Brubeck made solo albums of greater musical consequence than his string-accented confection, including his duet album Two of A Mind (RCA LSP-2624) with Gerry Mulligan, also on RCA-Victor. Nonetheless, this album pleases every play.

The final day of the Hong Kong High End Audio Video Show began for AnalogPlanet.com editor Michael Fremer (after an evening of excessive wine and cognac consumption) with a guest spot on the "Pop Fugitives" radio show hosted by vinyl fans Paul Haswell and Carolyn Wright who extended the invitation after learning that Fremer was visiting Hong Kong to attend the audio show.

More coverage of the 15th annual Hong Kong show, this time emphasizing the 2nd and 4th floor rooms, though there's a revisit of the main conventional floor.

The Audio Salon, Santa Monica, CA and Wilson Audio Specialties invite you to another of our critical listening events. On this coming Saturday evening, August 19th between 4 and 8 PMWilson Audio Specialties' Peter McGrath and The Audio Salon's Maier Shadi with present the all new Alexia Series 2 loudspeaker. (Pictured are Maier Shadi and Peter McGrath).

Last Friday, Saturday and Sunday (August 11-14) marked the 15th anniversary of the Hong Kong High End Audio/Video Show held at the gleaming Hong Kong Convention Center. First day's attendance (Friday) was a genuine 11,000. Saturday's was 12,000 and the show organizers told me they expected Sunday's attendance to also hit 12,000. When you watch the video you will have no trouble believing these numbers other than to think they are low!

A heavenly pairing of Bacharach's suburban pop melodic intent and Costello's insightful lyrics that well-capture the required Bacharach late afternoon bedroom melodrama produced this 1998 gem of a soap operatic collaboration.

Back in 2015 Wall Steet Journal correspondent Neil Shah wrote a curious piece called “The Biggest Music Comeback of 2014: Vinyl Records”. Curious because while the headline heralds that “the biggest music comeback of 2014” was the resurgence of vinyl records, the story itself threw a mud caked wet blanket over the entire experience, one created by Mr. Shah’s cynical and highly selective use of the information he obtained by talking to people in the industry.

Coming up shortly on AnalogPlanet will be a full evaluation of Jim Fosgate's electronic azimuth setting/crosstalk reduction FOZ XT-R!

Did you ever wonder where the vinyl used to press your records originates? Most of the vinyl pellets used by American pressing plants originates in Thailand, manufactured at a TPC plant on the outskirts of Bangkok.