Soundsmith’s Peter Ledermann has been designing and building “fixed coil” cartridges for many years, beginning when he was asked by customers to “back engineer” a B&O design used in that company’s “plug in” cartridge tone arms.

Channel D, purveyor of Pure Vinyl vinyl ripping software (actually the program does far more) also manufactures a line of phono preamplifiers. At AXPONA 2016 Channel D introduced the Seta Supreme, the company's most ambitious and costly phono preamplifier.

Many rooms at AXPONA 2016 featured excellent sound. The best I heard was in the ARC, Sonus Faber, AMG, Kubala-Sosna room.

Pro-Ject's Heinz Lichtenegger couldn't wait for next week's Munich show where he will hold a twenty fifth anniversary press conference and debut this handsome new turntable. Instead he flew to New York and debuted it first at the World of McIntosh (WOMA) townhouse.

Analog Spark, a Razor and Tie imprint headed by Mark Piro just announced some great upcoming AAA releases headlined by the iconic Bernstein/NYP recording of "Rhapsody in Blue" and "An American in Paris" cut by Ryan K. Smith using for the first time the original three track master tape.

Easily the most unusual analog-related product introduced at AXPONA 2016 was Jim Fosgate's Foz XT-R crosstalk reducer built and marketed by electronics manufacturer Jolida..

At AXPONA 2016 Analogplanet.com editor Michael Fremer learns about new analog products including a $2300 four input MC/MM phono preamp from Cyrus that's remote control configurable, and new turntables from Clearaudio, TEAC and Music Hall.

Prince gone at 57? Who would have thought? There was just enough time to put together this mostly vinyl-sourced show, paying tribute to the one-of-a-kind Prince (image is of wall outside First Avenue club).

The revolutionary DS Audio optical cartridge has gotten a major revision and upgrade both to the phono stage and the internal design. There are now various models, including the top of the line Master 1 shown here.

Industry veteran/designer Peter Madnick shows analogplanet.com the latest from the resurrected Audio Alchemy electronics line. Madnick was also responsible for the original 1990's era Audio Alchemy line.