Between 1975 and 1982, the renowned Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra recorded and released the nine numbered symphonies of the great Romantic composer Anton Bruckner for Deutsche Grammophon. For Karajan it was the culmination of a lifetime studying and performing these works. The cycle, coming at the beginning of the Bruckner revival, was one of the earliest complete recordings, and has remained a benchmark ever since.... Read More

Musician, recording artist, label owner, Gillian Welch partner in life and in the studio, and all around analog aficionado Dave Rawlings invited me to visit his Woodland recording Studio during last June's Making Vinyl where we finally sat down face to face to talk about the things we both know and love. This meeting—something we both talked about doing for almost five years now—was worth the wait as you'll see and hear. Over the past almost half-decade... Read More

LOS ANGELES—Rhino High Fidelity (Rhino Hi-Fi) returns with the latest addition to its acclaimed limited-edition, high-end vinyl reissues with the first-ever boxed set release. ZZ Top From The Top: 1971-1976 includes ZZ Top’s First Album (1971), Rio Grande Mud(1972), Tres Hombres (1973), Fandango! (1975), and Tejas (1976). This Hi-Fi release celebrates their musical excellence and includes detailed liner notes by James Austin in conversation with frontman Billy... Read More

Patrick Leonard and his wife Anna stopped by today (she piloted her plane to Teterboro airport) to discuss promotional plans for the soon to be available album It All Comes Down to Mood, which debuted July 26th on Apple Music and is available for pre-order at Acoustic Sounds, Music Direct and Elusive Disc. The couple also got a chance to hear the album on my system.After playing most of side two of the four sides, Patrick said he wants to mix his next record here. He... Read More

July 26, 2024 (Los Angeles, CA) – The limited edition Deluxe Edition of Archives Vol. III, available on September 6 exclusively at neilyoungarchives.com, includes recordings and films together that show the unheralded sweep of Young's efforts from the 1976-1987 period of his journey. It is one of the most extensive anthologies in his recorded history.There are a total of 22 discs, with 17 CD’s in 11 soft-paks and 5 Blu-rays in 3 soft-paks. There are 11 films on... Read More

I figured it was a good time to catch up with Steve Westman and his community. I wanted to check the reaction. It was mostly good. Read More

By the time all the construction dust had settled (in the summer of 2010), more than a million dollars had been spent to transform a section of the second floor of Sewanee’s Jessie Ball duPont Library into a world-class audiophile listening room rivaling the playback in the most famous recording studios and mastering labs worldwide.  

Born 100 years ago this year, John Culshaw set new standards in the craft and art of classical recording, primarily during his tenure at Decca. His recordings of Wagner's complete Ring cycle and Britten's War Requiem were critical and commercial successes of an order that has rarely been equalled, and remain acknowledged classics of the gramophone. To mark his centenary, we talk about what made him such an important figure in the history of recording, and pick 10(+) essential records which fully display his exceptional gifts as a record producer, and which sound as fresh today as they did when they were first made.

Tom Fine explains the history in the liner notes accompanying each of these Pablo reissues, that in 1960 label founder Norman Granz sold Verve Records to MGM and moved to Europe where he promoted concerts and collected art. When his non-compete agreement expired in the early '70s he noted that many of his jazz friends, who like him, were now older but hardly "washed up", were without recording contracts. Two, Ella and Oscar, he also managed. You'll... Read More

Though most older fans today consider later albums "The Colour of Spring" (1986) and Spirit of Eden (1988) and to a lesser degree 1991's Laughing Stock to be Talk Talk's peak (though younger crowds especially prefer the last two albums), It's My Life from 1984 was the beginning of the band's rise to musical excellence (though critics mostly hated Spirit of Eden when it was first released and it was a commercial failure).Rhino Records on... Read More

Monk was born on October 10, 1917 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Four years later his family moved to New York City, settling at the Phipps Houses at 243 West 63rd St in Manhattan, known then as the San Juan Hill area, later referred to as the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts neighborhood. When he was five years old, a neighbor gave him piano lessons in the stride style of Fats Waller and James P Johnson. At ages 10-12 he had classical piano lessons from Simon... Read More

Record plating is the "secret sauce" behind great sounding records. A great lacquer cut can be sabotaged by inept plating. Only a handful of experienced experts know how best to do this, aided by the finest infrastructure. RTI's plating expert Dorin Sauerbier is one of the world's best and the infrastructure he's built at RTI over the past 20 plus years helps produce some of the world's best stampers and thus some of the world's best... Read More

Fidelity Record Pressing, a partnership between Music Direct's Jim Davis and pressing plant veteran Rick Hashimoto and his son Edward, opened its brand new Oxnard, CA pressing plant to invited guests Friday, May 17th. I'd returned from Munich High End on the 15th after being away since the 7th of May so the idea of getting back on a plane the next day and flying cross country to attend on the 17th was out of the question. So I did something even more insane.... Read More

LOS ANGELES—Rhino High Fidelity (Rhino Hi-Fi) returns with the latest additions to its acclaimed limited-edition, high-end vinyl reissues. Bad Company’s Self-Titled(1974) debut and Yes’s Relayer (1974) are available today exclusively at Rhino.com and internationally at select WMG stores. Each release is limited to 5,000 individually numbered copies priced at $39.98Rhino High Fidelity has set the industry standard for sound quality and packaging, demonstrating... Read More

If you click on a writer's name it will take you to a page showing a clickable link to every review by that writer! Try it! You'll like it. Read More

About 23 pages into “Revolución to Roxy”, you’ll find eight-year-old Phil Manzanera carrying a small tray of cake and Cuban coffee to a man across the road standing watch over an empty house. By way of thanks the guard gives him a “broad smile” and then, as a sort of improvised firecracker, sets off a pinch of gun powder from an empty .303 shell. That’s just one charming glimpse into the life of the Roxy Music guitarist at a time that was otherwise lit up by the... Read More

Great titles, oft-released, first time on UHQR. What else is there to say? At least until we get to hear it. Read More

BINGHAMTON, NY – July 1, 2024 – McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., the premier name in audio excellence, proudly announces the release of SESSIONS Volume 1, a jazz album featuring eight original compositions by The Peter Erskine Quartet. Produced with iconic mastering studio Sterling Sound, this unique collaboration results in an album worthy of the world’s most discerning listeners – McIntosh customers – with the goal of creating the best sounding record possible, while... Read More