Musicologist, conductor and Paris National Conservatory alumnus Jean-Marc Harari's The French Recording Company (Les Discophiles Francais) issued a previously unreleased Marcelle Meyer Debussy recording back in 2019 that I reported on and reviewed on my previous website. The review caused a stir because the double LP all-analog set, limited to 200 copies was costly, though less expensive than originals of other Meyer records and buyers at the time expressed no... Read More

If you missed the Florida International AUDIO EXPO (Feb. 21st-23) this video takes you there. Sorry it's taken me a week to get this video edited and ready for YouTube viewing. Many new products were introduced and many familiar ones were on display as well. A new, larger venue—The Sheraton Tampa Brandon made for a much bigger and better show. Attendance was strong throughout and everyone involved seemed happy with the results. According to show organizers... Read More

Commitment, they say, is just the b-side of having limited options. Otherwise, why would you find the stylish members of Japan toiling away under a hail of Punk spit or opening for Blue Oyster Cult? Then there was Kate Bush making her musical bones around southeast London with covers of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Come Together.” Then again it may be harder perhaps, to think of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis shlepping guitars in and out of pubs while holding down his duties as... Read More

The Electric Recording Company just announced it will deliver in April 450 copies of The Grateful Dead's triple LP Europe '72 as a limited to 450 copy release.Not everyone loves what ERC does with rock recordings, which is give buyers a "straight off the tape" document with no equalization or compression applied, but enough do so these sell out quickly. That's why we're putting this up post haste! Cost: £650From the ERC website blurb: ... Read More

(Press release) Blue Note Records has announced an April 11 release of On View At The Five Spot Café: The Complete Masters, a special Tone Poet Vinyl Edition of guitarist Kenny Burrell’s sublime 1959 hard bop summit with drummer Art Blakey. The expanded 3-LP, 2-CD, and digital sets, which can be pre-ordered now on the Blue Note Store, present the complete recorded performances for the first time in any format including six previously unissued tracks. Listen to “The... Read More

Reliable Corporation's UberLight® Flex became a big hit in the audiophile world a few years ago. It's among the best ways to illuminate a turntable or any piece of audio gear. They are ubiquitous at audio shows worldwide. Reliable just introduced the new Frame UberLight® that's a radical departure and a major esthetic and functional upgrade from the Flex. The sophisticated looking Frame offers more than 100 lighting combinations with six brightness... Read More

Clearaudio's Unity tonearm, originally developed for the Master Jubilee turntable that celebrated the company's 45th analog manufacturing anniversary is now available in either black or silver finish as a "stand-alone" product for use with Clearaudio and other turntable brands. Price is $20,000. Clearaudio Universal tonearm owners receive 100% trade up allowance when upgrading to the Unity.The Unity combines classic Clearaudio features such as... Read More

The Flat.Duo's outstanding warped record flattening ability was the highlight of the previous Flat.Duo video. The noise added to two records I "relaxed" using the Flat.Duo's "Relax" mode's standard settings were the lowlights. Naturally, the manufacturer in Germany and the importer were disturbed by the results and who could blame them? Both said that customers (including some industry insiders I know) had no such experience and they... Read More

Ortofon celebrated its 90th birthday with the release of the now legendary and truly revolutionary MC A90—the first cartridge to use SLM (Selective Laser Melt) technology to build up from metallic powder (stainless steel for the MC A90) a cartridge body shape that would have been impossible to "machine away" from a block of stainless steel, aluminum or other materials. The shape was about self-damping and resonance control, not to create a fanciful... Read More

Oakland, CA. Feb. 10, 2025—Musical Surroundings is excited to announce the appointment of Chris Thompson as Service and Product Manager. Chris was the Quality Control and Special Projects Manager at Parasound in San Francisco for 11 years. One of Chris’ many responsibilities was developing and supporting the Parasound line of John Curl designed phono stages.Moving across the bay to Oakland, Chris now works with Mike Yee, designer of the Musical Surroundings’ Phonomena... Read More

Mack Avenue Music Group announced last month its partnership with Strata-East Records, the influential jazz label known for artistic freedom and high production standards founded in 1970 by Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell. The series will be released over time on AAA vinyl cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, pressed on 180g RTI vinyl and deluxe laminated gatefold packaged— paper on cardboard— by Dorado. Strata-East: The Legacy Begins—a digital-only anthology... Read More

While in California last week working on a project for Mack Avenue Records (more about that soon) I visited Kevin Gray's Cohearent Mastering. That interview related to the Mack Avenue Records project will appear soon but for now, while at Kevin's I asked to see his home-based recording studio, inspired by Rudy Van Gelder's Prospect Avenue, Hackensack home studio in use until he moved in 1959 to the big one in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. He obliged. It's... Read More

Batch #7 of the Original Source Series from Deutsche Grammophon is almost upon us, with Karl Böhm conducting Mozart’s Requiem and Michael Tilson Thomas conducting Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 to be released next week, and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet plus Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy from Claudio Abbado in Boston due the week after.Also coming out on February 14th is Herbert von Karajan’s truly monumental recording of Mahler’s 6th Symphony, which I consider to be his... Read More

Blondie released its fourth album Eat to the Beat in 1979. No way then could the band have known that nearly a half-century later it might be possible to press beats onto records made of beets that, at least theoretically, one could actually eat! Thermal Beets Records is a partnership founded by Larry Jaffee, the author of "Record Store Day: The Most Improbable Comeback of the  21st Century" and co-founder of the Making Vinyl conference, and Kevin DaCosta, a vinyl manufacturing consultant and the technical director for Evolution Music.

Press release: Acoustic Sounds - the global leader in analog expertise - is proud to announce the return of Chad Stelly, a renowned turntable setup specialist and audio guru, to their team. With Stelly back in the fold, Acoustic Sounds will offer customers the same level of personalized, and solutions-driven equipment sales that defines their best-in-class, in-house brands, Analogue Productions and Quality Record Pressings.Chad Stelly, affectionately known as... Read More

U.K. based dCS debuted its new Varése DAC at NYC's Innovative Audio, January 23rd, first in a mid-day press event to which you are invited (in this video) and later in the day to the public. dCS Managing Director David Steven, North American Director Emron Mangelson and Programme Director Andrew Szelke were on hand to make the presentation of the company's new $270,000 DAC. You will see in this video what went into the research and development of this... Read More

Last Friday night, with the Palisades Fire moving in the direction of our house, my wife and I loaded the car with photo albums, sleeping bags and a tent, and had our suitcases ready to go. Then, I realized I might have time (and the space) to pick out some records to take with me. In Part 1 I talked about my classical selections. In Part 2 it is time to go through my rock, jazz and film music collection and make my choices...

Beyond the seriousness of this moment, you might call this an impromptu tour through some of the highlights of my record collection: a diversion in harrowing times.