Let’s put the lede where it belongs: This is a terrific, even an exciting album. Marta Sanchez topped last year’s Downbeat critics’ poll in the category of Rising Star Pianist. With this album, she has risen—holding a berth among the top echelon of jazz pianists, period.Born and schooled in Spain, Sanchez has led bands on six albums since moving to Brooklyn 15 years ago. Her new one, For the Space You Left (on the Out of Your Head Records label), is her first solo... Read More

The 1971 Weather Report precursor and post Miles In A Silent Way album is a series of musical impressions featuring an all-star cast that includes Herbie Hancock, Woody Shaw, Miroslav Vitous, Joe Chambers, Wayne Shorter, Billy Hart and others. But pick through and pull out Vitous, Zawinul and Shorter and you have the beginnings of Weather Report. Zawinul delivers a short 4:47 "In A Silent Way" as the chaser to the opener "Doctor Honoris Causa"... Read More

During a weeklong Provo, Utah event beginning April 20th, Wilson Audio Specialties launched the Autobiography, the company's most advanced and costly loudspeaker. Invited guests included international and domestic distributors and dealers, as well as select members of the press. In the hour long video you will first see the unveiling in a Provo museum setting followed by CEO Daryl Wilson's detailed discussion highlighting the speaker's technological advances that make this the most time coherent loudspeaker in the company's 50+ year history.

The surviving members of The Doors (Krieger and Densmore) and its management are masters of taking their legacy, a span of less than 10 active years, and milking it beyond reason for decades. As their core fanbase ages and withers into the sands of time, studio and live material continues to beireleased that one would’ve expected to already be out there. Record Store Day is the perfect venue for these ongoing excavations. Last year, engineer Bruce Botnick unearthed... Read More

After the huge commercial success of Decca’s recording of Wagner’s tetralogy in the late 1950s and early 60s, Deutsche Grammophon decided it was time to throw its hat in the ring (so to speak).  Turning to its star conductor and orchestra - Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic - what emerged was an account very different to Solti’s instant classic, both musically and sonically. Karajan's Ring may not enjoy the notoriety of Solti's account, but it more than holds its own, and for many is preferable.  Marking the 150th Anniversary of the cycle’s first performance at Bayreuth’s inaugural Festival in 1876, DG has turned over the master tapes of Das Rheingold to the technical wizards at Emil Berliner Studios for this Original Source vinyl reissue.  In Part 1 I took a deep dive into the origins, story, themes and musical processes of this groundbreaking opera. In Part 2 I examine Karajan’s distinctive approach to the score, and assess the performance and sonics of this important reissue.

Okay, it's not all tube gear, but I tried to put all or most of the tube gear at Axpona 2026 in this video. I'm sure I missed some rooms that had tube gear because I was there mostly looking for turntables and phono preamps—no great surprise—but there were many rooms with tube gear. Some of it was in the first video. Here you'll see more detail about the Audio Research Ref 20 that made its debut at this show, and other new Audio Research gear.... Read More

Some of my most memorable audio memories are centered around my friendship with David Wilson. I saw Dave numerous times in Utah and he visited me twice in Washington, DC, where he set up the WAMM Master Chronosonic loudspeakers and subwoofers. How well I recall our conversations about loudspeakers, music and politics! He would, more often than not, inject a salubrious note of sobriety when I waxed enthusiastic about a new cartridge or preamp. Dave, you could say, had... Read More

ZZ Top's third, released July, 1973 was the group's breakthrough set, peaking at #8 on the crowded Billboard Top 200. "Boogie-Rock", flavored with Southern Memphisonian (is there such a word?) blues charm produced a unique blend of pulsating rhythmic drive and country charm . Perhaps that's why all these years later the album continues to find new audiences wanting to both "boogie down" and draw close to the southern ether. It's... Read More

After the huge commercial success of Decca’s recording of Wagner’s tetralogy in the late 1950s and early 60s, Deutsche Grammophon decided it was time to throw its hat in the ring (so to speak).  Turning to its star conductor and orchestra - Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic - what emerged was an account very different to Solti’s instant classic, both musically and sonically. Karajan's Ring may not enjoy the notoriety of Solti's account, but it more than holds its own, and for many is preferable.  Marking the 150th Anniversary of the cycle’s first performance at Bayreuth’s inaugural Festival in 1876, DG has turned over the master tapes of Das Rheingold to the technical wizards at Emil Berliner Studios for this Original Source vinyl reissue.  Join me for a deep dive into this groundbreaking opera, Karajan’s distinctive approach to the score, and this important reissue. (You can read Part 2 here).

(April 24, 2026 - Los Angeles, CA) On June 14, 1970, the Grateful Dead released Workingman’s Dead, an album that was unlike anything they’d ever done, one that showed the world a new side of the Dead. It was clearly the same band as before, but now with a distinctly different sound and approach to the music, pivoting from psychedelic improvisation to folk-rock storytelling for the “everyman,” as the album’s title suggests. Today, Rhino High Fidelitypresents new... Read More

(Press release): (April 17, 2026 - Los Angeles, CA) As the Eagles continue “The Long Goodbye” tour with upcoming performances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and stadiums, Universal Music Enterprises has announced a vinyl and digital reissue of Don Henley’s 6x platinum solo album The End Of The Innocence on June 5, 2026. The album is newly remastered from the original analog tapes (cut from tapes by Chris Bellman, and pressed at Precision_ed.) and will... Read More

Thelonious Alone in San Francisco is the middle of Thelonious Monk’s three solo-piano albums and, to my mind, the most satisfying. It was recorded over two days in October 1959 during his first trip to the Bay Area, where he’d been lured to play sets at the Black Hawk jazz club. Orrin Keepnews, his producer at Riverside Records, Monk’s label at the time, happened to be on the West Coast, so they decided to spend some of their free time making this album. Maybe San... Read More

Review Explosion, our guide to notable recent(-ish) releases and reissues, is finally back, with a burst of shorter reviews of a few records. In this edition: a UMe Vinylphyle reissue of Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun, a half-speed reissue of George Michael’s Faith, Geese’s universally lauded Getting Killed, a reissue of Arthur Russell’s sole 12” as Dinosaur, and an injection-molded Coldplay pressing. More Review Explosions to follow after this one, stay tuned and keep reading.

Hard to believe that today, April 23, 2026 is the golden anniversary of the start of pure punk music. The release of the Ramones eponymous debut album was ground zero for punk and the world would never quite be the same again. I was there and this is how I saw it. First some background. Punk rock is a subgenre of rock and roll with roots in garage rock, but it's generally faster, louder and more aggressive than garage. Punk was a rebellion against the hippie... Read More

There’s a certain kind of progress that doesn’t look like progress at all. It doesn’t arrive with a spec sheet that doubles everything. It doesn’t announce itself with a new acronym or a breakthrough processing engine. It doesn’t even try to convince you it’s better—at least not right away. It just shows up, quietly, carrying the weight of everything that came before it. That’s how it unfolded for me with the BorderPatrol ZOLA DAC.The BorderPatrol ZOLA DAC is a... Read More

As I've already written in the written coverage, AXPONA 2026 was the biggest and best AXPONA ever with spill-over crowds each day and a demographic that skewed younger than ever. It was more like the Warsaw or High End Munich shows and that's good for the high performance audio industry! And that's despite the economic uncertainty. Show organizers included car audio and headphones aimed at a younger crowd but from what I saw, the youngsters were... Read More

To understand what Dejan Nikic has accomplished with the NAT Audio Transmitter EVO monoblocks, it’s worth pulling back the lens a bit, far enough to take in a century of amplifier design, complete with its obsessions, breakthroughs, and the occasional bout of engineering tunnel vision.For decades, the mainstream chased vanishingly low distortion figures, typically achieved through generous applications of global feedback. On a test bench, the results looked... Read More

This album, available on April 18th as a Record Store Day special, is interesting and worthy of your attention on many levels beyond the music, which of course is the main attraction. First, it was co-produced by Charles Tolliver in 1968, 3 years before he and Stanley Cowell founded Strata-East Records. So clearly this was an independently produced project, though Tolliver's new annotation for this "full circle" Strata-East release doesn't provide... Read More