This review has taken longer to write than EveAnna Manley took to finish the design and put Oasis into production and make it available to buy. That's a long time but she had an excuse. I have none. Well, there were reasons of scheduling, "stuff" happening, prior commitments etc. Her excuse was designing a new from the ground up phono preamp to replace the popular Chinook, though it uses basic circuitry found in all Manley phono preamps. When I visited... Read More

A tide was turning when the dawn of the 1980s coincided with the demise of the progressive rock genre and one of its godfathers, Yes. Punk and New Wave made old hat of everything musically that preceded it and MTV shifted the focus of the music industry to an artist’s image. As for Yes, fans found it hard to embrace the new lineup that integrated pop duo The Buggles, where vocalist Trevor Horn had to fill Jon Anderson’s hard-to-fill shoes. Their streak of crafting... Read More

Of course Art Pepper, 31 when this album was recorded, doesn't really "meet" the rhythm section on the January 19th, 1957 recording, which puts the alto saxophonist hard left channel and the rhythm section hard right with little but open subtle ambient space between the two. Bernie Grundman explains in the booklet accompanying Contemporary Analogue Productions UHQR titles that the passive board didn't feature a center panning pot so it resembles... Read More

“The Statue of Liberty said, ‘Come!’”—John Lennon, “New York City,” 1972It was sobering to stroll through the halls of the Brooklyn Museum last spring for Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm, which captured the Beatles’ culture-exploding first U.S. visit with unprecedented intimacy.Through McCartney’s lens, Lennon, peering at New York through his thick glasses, looks half-incredulous, half-haunted — the gleam of Beatlemania flashing in his eyes even... Read More

Last night at Innovative Audio in East Midtown NYC and The Audio Salon in Santa Monica, CA, Rhino launched a new reel-to-reel series under their High Fidelity banner. The first two titles are Yes’ The Yes Album and T. Rex’s Electric Warrior, each limited to 500 copies and retailing for $299.98 (a bundle with both sells for $569.98).Duplicated in real time from 1:1 flat master tape copies, the Rhino High Fidelity R2R tapes are 10.5” diameter, 15ips, 1/4” IEC reels on... Read More

Berlin, the city where I was born, grew up, and still live today, was divided for three decades. The Berlin Wall stood here, and the city was perhaps the most famous border between East and West. The Wall completely enclosed West Berlin, but also ran right through the middle of historic Berlin. The Wall separated not only the country and its people, but also its culture. Most of the theaters, opera houses, museums, and libraries were located in East Berlin, which was... Read More

This Thursday, Oct 9th from 7-9PM, The Audio Salon is honored to be hosting a reel-to-reel tape listening event. Join us for drinks and the world premier of the re-release of two amazing CLASSIC ROCK albums. Please RSVP to amickum@shorefire.com if you would like to attend. Read More

Deep Purple’s Mark II lineup of Blackmore/Lord/Paice/Gillan/Glover, strayed from the group’s psychedelic origins, adapting to the harder-rocking style of contemporaries like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, which became the pillars of what became heavy metal. Fueled by lengthy and dynamic improvisations, the group was an untamable force on the live stage, something that worked in favor of their reputation and against the notion that it would translate efficiently on... Read More

Okay, here's my sub mission: I'm spoiled. I have the original 11 track Virgin U.K. release (A2/B1) issued in haste and quickly corrected to the 12 track standard version. You want Steve Jones's snarling, fibrillating singular animal guitar (arguably the glue that holds the record together, created by reproducing his guitar part an octave down as explained in Chris Thomas's notes in this reissue) make your ears sizzle. You want Lydon/Rotten's... Read More

Contributing writer Evan Toth opened The Sharp Notes record store in the sprawling Garden State Plaza shopping center last month and on Saturday, October 4th held a grand opening celebration. It's the first new record store in the mall in at least 30 years. That one was Coconuts back when there was Bananas (still there in St. Pete), Coconuts, Peaches, Strawberries, Licorice Pizza, and other fruit cocktail record stores.The mall parking lots were filled so people... Read More

Technics recently introduced a pair of under $1000 direct drive turntables. The less costly SL-40CBT includes Bluetooth connectivity and a less costly cartridge. Technics sent for review the $899.99 SL-50C, featuring the Ortofon 2M Red, built in defeatable phono preamp and 3 speed operation.Built-in MM phono preampHow did Technics achieve cost savings to bring the price down to $900? Not by skimping on the direct drive motor. The SL-50C uses an "SL-1500C... Read More

Resolution Audio's 7500 square foot hi-fi / smart home facility in Brooklyn recently experienced a 5-alarm fire—or more specifically the entire building was hit one way or another. While the fire did not spread directly to Adam Wexler's retail space (spotlit in a June post), there was water and smoke damage caused by the fire, which burned for more than 24 hours. On September 23rd, DeVore Audio's John DeVore organized a Go Fund Me campaign to help... Read More

If the music wasn't so interesting and singular, the story behind the album recorded in 1967 and released in 1968 would easily be more so. Dumped by Decca after having a string of great singles including "She's Not There", the group self-financed this project, recorded much of it at what later would be called Abbey Road Studios (with some at Olympic), signed to CBS, put out two singles and then this album released April, 1968 a month after the band... Read More

Joan Baez has sung for presidents, marched for justice, and filled concert halls with her voice. But here, for the first time, she sets aside the guitar and lets her words do the singing. When You See My Mother, Ask Her To Dance is Baez's debut book of poetry — now transformed into a limited-edition spoken-word album, exclusively distributed by Acoustic Sounds.With her unmistakable warmth, wit, and wry honesty, Baez narrates poems about the icons she knew (Bob... Read More

October 3, 2025 – Six decades later, the music still wows, baffles, and inspires. What happened over two nights in a tiny, unassuming Chicago club under a bakery was a fascinating and unplanned documentation of a pivotal moment in the evolution of Miles Davis's leadership and sound. Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, today announce the reissue of these legendary recordings: THE COMPLETE LIVE AT THE PLUGGED... Read More

"The Jazz Detective" Zev Feldman best known for his worldwide vault discovery jazz issues on Resonance, Elemental and other labels, just announced a new venture: Time Traveler Recordings —a wide ranging program of reissues and newly discovered recordings that will cross over beyond jazz to other musical genres. For starters though Feldman is reissuing, in association with Craft Recordings, titles from the long dormant Muse Records catalog. The "Master... Read More

Now for part two of our David Bowie vinyl guide aka “how Parlophone botched most of their current remaster series” (part one here). Before we dive in, I’ve read all the comments about part one and have a couple things to address:Yes, the '70s albums inherently aren’t the most dynamic mixes, nor would I want them to be. Yes, Bowie and Visconti (when applicable) often went for a thick, processed sound, and they achieved that on the originals. That’s what Bowie... Read More

(October 2, 2025 - Los Angeles, CA) Rhino revisits The Monkees’ most sonically adventurous studio album with two new editions of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. On October 3, the album will receive its first-ever vinyl pressing from the original analog stereo master reels as part of the Rhino High Fidelity series. Alongside the High Fidelity pressing, returns in an expansive 4CD/7-inch Super Deluxe Edition featuring previously unreleased recordings, new... Read More