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.

As the LA Fire Tyger Roars, I decide which music to save that has accompanied me across 50 years and two continents...

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. Part 1 focuses on my classical records; Part 2 on my rock, jazz and film music titles.

On January 7th at this year's CES Technics introduced the EAH-AZ100 flagship Bluetooth earbuds but I got to experience them a month earlier in Japan. When the invite arrived in my inbox I really didn't know what to make of it. Earbuds? Me? Japan? Sign an NDA? Sure, but was Technics really flying me to Japan for a headphone launch? Until I got there I thought maybe the trip was really about a new top end turntable and they were just making sure I didn't... Read More

PRESS RELEASE: (January 10, 2025 - Los Angeles, CA) Rhino High Fidelity (Rhino Hi-Fi) cranks up the volume again on its series of acclaimed limited-edition, high-end vinyl reissues by revitalizing and re-energizing two more rock classics! New Rhino Hi-Fi versions of Television’s pivotal sophomore LP Adventure and Faces’ fourth full-length album, Ooh La La, will be available today, exclusively at Rhino.com and internationally at select WMG stores. Each release is... Read More

Press release: [Jan. 6, 2025] — Acoustic Sounds announces their latest high quality reissue, Steely Dan’s groundbreaking fourth studio album, Katy Lied. This gold-selling classic, originally released in 1975, has been meticulously remastered for an Ultra High Quality Record (UHQR) reissue, the pinnacle of vinyl craftsmanship. Available on January 31st, 2025, and available for pre-order HERE, the release is the latest installment of Acoustic Sounds' ongoing series, which has featured releases from Steely Dan’s Can’t Buy a Thrill, Countdown to Ecstasy, Pretzel Logic, The Royal Scam, Aja and Gaucho since September 2022. “This could be the best vinyl record I’ve ever heard,” said Bob Lefsetz, on Acoustic Sounds’ UHQR edition of Can’t Buy a Thrill. “This is rarefied air. Not only is this a classic album that has stood the test of time, this is not the vinyl you see in your clothing store, not even in your record store.

With due apologies to Auric Goldfinger as he leered over Sean Connery about to have the family jewels melted by a laser beam, we continue our holiday stroll down Vinyl (and occasionally CD) Memory Lane and through the used bins for some choice Bondian music picks: original soundtracks and compilation albums, all featuring the indelible music of John Barry. (You can read Part 1 of this survey here).

With due apologies to Auric Goldfinger as he leered over Sean Connery about to have the family jewels melted by a laser beam, let’s take a holiday stroll down Vinyl (and occasionally CD) Memory Lane and through the used bins for some choice Bondian music picks: original soundtracks and compilation albums, all featuring the indelible music of John Barry.

Let’s remember 2022; back when there were still two Popes and Post Malone fans wondered whatever would he do with those last few patches of un-inked skin. The rush of time will do what it can to rinse all of that and more from our memories, but it will probably have little to no impact on the persistent stream of interest that’s still generated by The Beatles.Today we’re still seeing fresh documentaries flicker to life, reissues continue to drop, and an untold number... Read More