Jana Dagdagan

The graphic above was created with data provided to me by the CTA (Consumer Technology Association). I understand that this data cannot possibly account for every single turntable sold in any given year, but I believe that this is the most accurate account of data currently available to us.

Six weeks ago, Jana Dagdagan and I visited the Peekskill, New York factory of Soundsmith—her first time there, my second. Although I didn't mention this to the company's President and Chief Engineer, Peter Ledermann, the thing that most impressed me during my second visit was how little had changed since my first, in April of 2015. In particular, all but two of the employees I saw at Soundsmith this year had been there during my first visit; that suggests an experienced workforce—no small advantage in the manufacturing of phono cartridges, where the requisite skills are specialized, to say the least—a setting where people feel sufficiently challenged and appreciated that they stick around for years rather than mere months.

Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Sam & Dave, Otis Redding—few studios have ever achieved the kind of distinct sound that once poured out of Stax Studios in Memphis, TN. A bit of that gritty, funky mojo lives again in the music of Southern Avenue, a new R&B act from Memphis that's named after the street that runs by the old Stax Studio.

In June, I visited headphone manufacturer Audeze's factory in Southern California (they've since moved) and capture an abridged version of the making of a pair of Audeze LCDi4 in-ear planar magnetic headphones ($2495). In the first part of this video, which is narrated by first Sankar Thiagasamudram, Audeze's founder and CEO, we begin with the making of the LCDi4, followed by the testing, burn-in, and packaging. This is followed by the unboxing and very first listening session, with John Atkinson, Stereophile's editor in chief.

Last week, John Atkinson and I attended "The Audeze Sensory Experience," Audeze's official launch party for the iSine10 ($399) and iSine20—the world's first in-ear planar magnetic headphones, which will be available in November.

At 5pm on a Thursday, some Thursdays ago, Robert Baird and I embarked on a post-work record hunt in Brooklyn. More specifically, we explored Williamsburg, otherwise referred to as "Hipster Land" (footnote 1). Aside from being an all-round neat neighborhood, Williamsburg is also home to quite a few record shops. This trip, we decided to keep our stops to a minimum and focus on two of our favorites: Rough Trade (64 N 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11249) and Earwax Records (167 N 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211).

Richard Matthews has sold upwards of 30,000 tubes in the last ten years and he still has 100,000 tubes to go! Working out of his Leeds Radio warehouse in the Bronx, Matthews has every tube imaginable in stock, as well as a vast variety of tube testers, classic radios, capacitors, beautiful vintage tube boxes and many, many collector's pieces.