August 22nd, 2023
A True Digital Test Coming Up: Chris Bellman Digitized @192/24 Personally Overseen By Waits/Brennan Released on Vinyl you could say "why not just let Chris just cut from tape?" By: Tracking Angle
"TOM WAITS’ ENTIRE METAMORPHIC AND GROUNDBREAKING MID-PERIOD ISLAND RECORDS STUDIO CATALOG NEWLY REMASTERED FROM ORIGINAL TAPES AND PREPPED FOR RELEASE ON VINYL "AND CD FOR FIRST TIME" (all caps from press release)
Read More Comments: 20August 22nd, 2023
"A Love Supreme" Gets A Supreme Analogue Productions UHQR Release is this the best sounding "A Love Supreme" and even if it is, is it worth $150? By: Michael Fremer"Don't throw your love away, No, no, no, no, Don't throw your love away, For you might need it someday". Lyrics from a song first recorded by The Orlons but later made popular by The Searchers. Good advice then and now.I'm not exactly "late to the fair" on this classic Coltrane album. I bought it new when it was first released January, 1965. A kid in my Cornell University, University Halls 3 dorm said "just get it" and so I... Read More
Comments: 30August 22nd, 2023
Iconoclast Cable by Belden —Additional Thoughts Dave McNair can't help but add his thoughts to Ken Redmond's review or "who get's what?" By: Dave McNairOccasionally, more than one reviewer writing for the same publication is interested in the same gear. More rarely, two writers will intentionally receive the same component in order to involve more than one set of ears.This situation was similar, but slightly different—like the sound of different brands of audio cables. While reviewing Treehaus Audio speakers, Rich Pinto of Treehouse hipped me to a cable brand he likes and uses—Iconoclast Cables by Belden. I called... Read More
Comments: 3August 21st, 2023
Tony Williams' Baffling Masterpiece The great drummer, at age 20, defying jazz gravity By: Fred KaplanSpring, drummer Tony Williams’ 1965 album on Blue Note, his second release as a leader, is a baffling recording. It’s a masterpiece. It reveals new angles, unlocks new mysteries on each listening. But beats me how or why it works.Williams (who, at the time, went by “Anthony Williams”) is credited with composing all five tracks, but except for one of them, “Love Song,” which has the structure and grace of a song, it’s hard to detect just what parts of what we hear were... Read More
Comments: 4August 21st, 2023
Rhino High Fidelity Reissues The Still Essential Van Morrison's "His Band And The Street Choir" sounds better than ever and the original RL Sterling cut was outstanding By: Michael FremerVan Morrison grew up listening to American blues and soul music courtesy of his father, a Belfast shipyard worker with excellent musical taste. No surprise that he moved to America and probably not because The Shadows of Knight's version of "Gloria" became a bigger hit in the USA than did his own version with "Them" released by U.K. Decca in 1964 as the "B" side of "Baby Please Don't Go". In 1965 with the American... Read More
Comments: 10August 21st, 2023
John Marks’ Bookshelf for Lovers of Recordings #6 A DOZEN BOOKS REVIEWED, ONE A WEEK FOR THE NEXT TWELVE By: John MarksHere are notes on a selection from my favorite books on the history of recording technology, the history of the record business, and the interactions between recording technology, the record business, and the art of music. One example of what I mean by all that is, in the late 1920s, piezoelectric “crystal” microphones supplanted carbon microphones for radio broadcasting. Crystal microphones had a better signal-to-noise ratio than carbon microphones. Therefore, the... Read More
Comments: 7August 19th, 2023
Ornette Coleman’s Contemporary LPs, Luxuriously Reissued by Craft ‘Genesis Of Genius’ documents his more conventional early outings By: Malachi LuiLast year, Craft Recordings released Genesis Of Genius, a vinyl or CD box set of Ornette Coleman’s two albums for Contemporary Records. The box is now discounted at multiple outlets and since Craft’s Acoustic Sounds series is reissuing the LPs individually, it’s still worth reviewing.Ornette Coleman, born and raised in Fort Worth, was controversial from the start. A working saxophonist (tenor, then a plastic alto after three men smashed his tenor sax following a show)... Read More
Comments: 2August 18th, 2023
Emil Berliner Swings For the Fences With Another Batch of "Original Source" Titles Will their bold play pay off? By: Michael JohnsonWhen the new batch of Deutsche Grammophon Original Source records arrived from the label for review, fellow Tracking Angle writer Mark Ward alerted me that I was on deck. And while I can’t hope to match his tour deforce review outlining the first four titles in this series, I have been eager to put into words my thoughts on the ongoing results of this monumental undertaking.While I didn’t formally review the first four titles, I did listen to all of them, and they... Read More
Comments: 31August 18th, 2023
A Deep Dive Past and Present Into the Many Records Released by Deutsche Grammophon Mark Ward and Michael Johnson discuss the rich Deutsche Grammophon recorded history By: Michael JohnsonTracking Angle writers Mark Ward and Michael Johnson sit down to discuss their collecting history with the storied German label, and the advent of the new "Original Source" series cut by Emil Berliner Studios. Filmed in late July, look for the follow up to this conversation in Michael's review of the second batch of Original Source titles. . Read More
Comments: 4August 17th, 2023
MoFi Electronics' MasterPhono™ Combines Versatility And High Sonic Performance transimpedance and voltage gain inputs, remote controllability and much more By: Michael FremerPut yourself in the shoes of an audio designer like industry veteran Peter Madnick. You are tasked with creating a phono preamplifier at a given price point. In the case of the MoFi MasterPhono phono preamplifer, around $6000. That puts it not at the “luxury” level, but well above “entry level.” Absent price constraints a designer can offer high sonic performance and a generous feature menu, but as the price drops, the higher becomes the tension between features and... Read More
Comments: 14August 17th, 2023
Jason Moran's "From the Dancehall to the Battlefield" Coming On Vinyl—Limited to 300 Copies Should quickly sell out By: Michael FremerIf you read Fred Kaplan's review of Jason Moran's From the Dancehall to the Battlefield you may have been sufficiently intrigued to order the Bandcamp download Moran uploaded for purchase this past New Year's Day. I was and I did and glad to have done it. Moran just announced a limited to 300 copies double LP $39.99 vinyl edition available now for pre-order, to be shipped early September. ● 2 LPs ● 180 Gram Vinyl Pressing ● Direct Metal Mastering ● Full... Read More
Comments: 4August 14th, 2023
Coltrane & Dolphy's First Outing The much-ballyhooed newly discovered '61 sets at the Village Gate By: Fred KaplanEvery few years, it seems, someone discovers another stack of long-lost tapes from a long-forgotten John Coltrane session and puts them out on CD, LP, or both. The resulting albums garner lavish praise and sell very well, but, really, they’re deep disappointments, textbook cases of hype—the allure of the new, the unknown, the never-before-heard-until-now! The first of the recent excavations, in 2018, was Both Directions at Once, a 1963 date at Rudy Van Gelder’s... Read More
Comments: 5August 14th, 2023
An Electricity Upgrade From the Roof to My Room Produced Major Sonic Benefits do this before adding a power conditioner By: Michael FremerI used to have major ground noise issues and other problems with my electrical service that I tried to solve as most audio enthusiasts do, with power conditioners and dedicated lines. Those produced some improvements, but there still were issues. The proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back" was the installation of an auxiliary whole house generator and its transfer switch, that when power goes out, removes the house from the grid and connects it... Read More
Comments: 11August 14th, 2023
John Marks’ Bookshelf for Lovers of Recordings #5 A DOZEN BOOKS REVIEWED, ONE A WEEK FOR THE NEXT TWELVE By: John MarksHere are notes on a selection from my favorite books on the history of recording technology, the history of the record business, and the interactions between recording technology, the record business, and the art of music. One example of what I mean by all that is, in the late 1920s, piezoelectric “crystal” microphones supplanted carbon microphones for radio broadcasting. Crystal microphones had a better signal-to-noise ratio than carbon microphones. Therefore, the... Read More
Comments: 0August 13th, 2023
Bestial Mouths Express Trauma and Atmosphere on ”R.O.T.T. (inmyskin)” Los Angeles-based dark wave collective unleashes their most empowering album to date By: Dylan PegginAfter almost a decade under its belt, Bestial Mouths is still a shape-shifting collective. What started as a group with numerous lineup changes became a vehicle for vocalist Lynette Cerezo to express her lyrics of personal trauma and tribulations. Alongside instrumentalists Brant Showers and Matthew Tucker, Bestial Mouths displays a sound that brings together the gothic elements of post-punk giants Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, and Depeche Mode with some... Read More
Comments: 0