Excellent video form Axpona

Peter Ledermann gives an excellent overview of cartridge design to audiophiles at this Spring's convention, worth listening through to the end. Infinite groove contact, differences between cartridge types, mysterious modulations -- all here, with decent graphics though you cannot hear the audience questions, you can infer enough from the answers. Certainly piques my interest in a new type of cartridge, so be warned.

Another competitor for Audiogon

I mentioned it previously but now it's up and running -- check out Audiomart   If you join now, it will allow free listings/deals until Aug 31st. After that the pricing can be $20 flat rate or 2%, your choice, which would presumably make the sale of sub $1k components attractive. Audiogon gets lots of criticism but it really is the leader in this area but competition is welcome. Also, don't forget Soundoffers, the've been going for a year or so now and though they don't have huge inventory yet,  they do seem to be attracting more listings (and their listings can be as low as $3 without a pic).

Sanding down the scratches on those old LPs

OK, if at first (and perhaps even second) glance, this sounds completely mental, you have to admit that if you read through it all and check his images, this guy makes a plausible case for at least considering sandpaper for scratch removal.......let me know how you get on ;)

http://www.instructables.com/id/Bring-Ruined-Records-Back-to-Life/

LP and CD sales surprisingly up

"In 2012, 193 million CDs were sold compared with 118 MP3 albums, which may be surprising to some. And according to market researchers, The NPD Group, CD sales have increased for the second year in a row -- making a 2% sales jump."  What is partly driving this (apart from the growth of middle aged consumers who like physical media) might be the ability on many sites to audition the music before committing. Amazon is great for this.  

Interestingly, while we all reacognize that LP sales are increasing, albeit slowly, the assumption is that this is such a small niche market that the increases really only reflect very small growth. It seems however, that vinyl sales are at their highest in 15 years, so that slow incremental growth is catching on.

 Read the full article here.