News

Yesterday I visited my friend and veteran disc jockey/on-air personality Paul Cavalconte to hang out and to "tweak" the Simon Yorke turntable he bought from me back in 2006 (story forthcoming). These days he's producing from his home a radio show that streams on The Progressive Radio Network (it's not a political show).

SOTA turntable co-founder David Fletcher recently passed away at age 81. The experimental physicist left the U.C. Berkeley Particle Lab to be his own boss. In 1972 he co-founded Sumiko. Both companies remain in business though Fletcher long ago sold his shares.

Swedish Analog Technologies today announced two new pickup arms to be introduced "...in the first quarter of 2018". The photo accompanying this news item is of the original SAT Pickup Arm because no photos of the new arms were provided at this time. In fact, this photo taken from the company's website is of an earlier version than the one currently in production.

T.H.E. Show Newport Beach 2013 is underway and coverage will begin later today. I participated in the ribbon cutting ceremony with John Atkinson, Robert Harley and Dr. David Robinson wearing the GoPro camera so you could see the event from my perspective but the camera was accidentally set to 'still' and I didn't get the video.

Let's just say I went into the TechDAS Air Force Zero's recent debut at The Audio Salon in Santa Monica with a great deal of skepticism. A big, lumbering turntable featuring an enormous and massive multi-layer platter system seemed like a prescription for over-damped, ill focused sound. What we heard those two evenings was anything but! By the way, what you see towards the bottom of the platter is not a reflection. That is the lower part of the platter!

Based on the Grand Class SL-1200G, the new 1210GAE is wholly made in Japan with a "significant level of hand-made processes" and features a full black anodized black brush hairline finish and black buttons.