LATEST ADDITIONS

Kansas City Symphony/Michael Stern One-Movement Symphonies, Sebastian Fagerlund: Nomade • Water Atlas and Andrew Von Oeyen: Bach • Beethoven.

Alice Coltrane: Kirtan: Turiya Sings, James Brandon Lewis/Red Lily Quintet: Jesup Wagon, William Parker: Painters Winter and Todd Cochran TC3: Then and Again, Here and Now.

David Bowie: The Width of a Circle, Japanese Breakfast: Jubilee, The Chills: Scatterbrain and Juliana Hatfield: Blood.

Step 1. When I was in my mid-20s, an older editor at the Dutch current-affairs magazine I worked for told me he wanted to write a piece about audiophiles: He had been bitten by the audio bug himself. Because I often wrote about rock and pop music, he asked if I had a quality hi-fi system, and if so, would I be willing to be interviewed for his article

A few years ago, Leif Johannsen, Ortofon's chief officer of acoustics and technology, was tasked with designing new products to commemorate the company's 100th anniversary, in 2018 (footnote 1). Ten years ago, to celebrate Ortofon's 90th, he came up with the radical A90 moving-coil cartridge, which used Selective Laser Melt (SLM) technology to laser-weld together microparticles of stainless steel, layer by layer, to produce a 3D-printed metal body whose shape would have been impossible to machine.

Mingus at Carnegie Hall documents one of the most extraordinary live jazz concerts. Atlantic Records released a one-disc LP of the same title in 1975,a few months after the heady event, but it included only the second half of the show—late-career Charles Mingus's young quintet jamming for 45 minutes with three older guest stars on Ellington standards "C Jam Blues" and "Perdido" (the latter written by Juan Tizol).

No one taught me more about the heralded tone of Ortofon SPU cartridges, the magical pacing of idler-drive turntables, or the dynamics and speed of horn-loaded speakers than Art Dudley, Stereophile's late deputy editor. His equipment reviews and monthly Listening columns weren't merely tutorials on how to review audio equipment with insight and an individual voice; they were also an entertaining, informative immersion into the kind of hi-fi he loved. We also shared many conversations, though too few.