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

Batch #7 of the Original Source deluxe vinyl reissue series from Deutsche Grammophon (all mastered and cut DIRECTLY from 4 and 8-track master tapes by Emil Berliner Studios) kicks off with an established catalogue classic. The young firebrand conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, protégé of Leonard Bernstein, made his mark early with a series of acclaimed recordings for DG in the 1970s, and this Tchaikovsky 1st - at the time a work that was rarely recorded - may be the most celebrated of them all.

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

Until Katy Lied, the "commercial" $29.99 Steely Dan reissues were cut using Bernie Grundman mastered digital files. All of the previous Dan albums therefore should have sonically resembled the UHQR 45rpm versions issued by Analogue Productions. None did. All sounded D.O.A. They were cut by a lesser known, let's say "second tier" Long Island, N.Y. based mastering engineer. Was the problem the quality of his cutting system? After all, a lacquer... Read More

By 1971, Yes had became synonymous with "progressive rock". After executing an array of rearranged covers and hybrids of blues and jazz on its first two albums (Yes and Time and a Word), the release of The Yes Album laid down the foundation for the group's “golden run”, which ran up until the mid-1970s. Tracks like “Yours Is No Disgrace,” “Starship Trooper,” and “I’ve Seen All Good People” were quick to become repertoire staples of their now 50+ year... Read More

Once upon a time, when great recording studios were a “thing”, long before they became almost extinct—when no one thought such a thing was even possible—studio owners and sound conscious musicians competed with one another to find new and improved recording technology.“Improved” came in many guises, some of which turned out to be worse. For instance, in the mid-1970s, the Aphex Aural Exciter grabbed the attention of both studio owners and musicians. It did what the... 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

Technics has a turntable problem most turntable manufacturers would be happy to have. The company’s SL-1200 introduced in 1972 and in continuous production until the “death of vinyl” in 2010, only to return to production with the “resurrection of vinyl” in 2016, is iconic. More than 3.5 million were sold and many are still in use.Because it’s iconic and instantly recognizable, Technics wisely chose to maintain the turntable’s oft-copied basic looks and even keep the... 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

Repertoire both familiar and welcomingly unfamiliar is put through its paces by this nascent collaboration between one of the world’s top orchestras with its dynamic new Chief Conductor.  This gorgeously appointed set is not only a compelling snapshot of a new musical era at the Philharmonie, it’s also a great way for classical novices to introduce themselves to an eclectic range of music in first-rate performances. 

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

Needle Clinic is a Northern California company that offers retipping and repair of moving-coil cartridges, including upgrades.

There's a misconception among some that King Crimson was Robert Fripp centered around a revolving door of personnel. The group's ever-changing style followed a new age philosophy of the music finding its players, leading to constant reinvention and being purely progressive. By the mid-1970s, King Crimson’s third lineup consisted of guitarist Robert Fripp, bassist/vocalist John Wetton, violinist David Cross, and percussionist Bill Bruford. This incarnation’s... 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.

The jacket is for a mono record so guess what? I played this record using a mono cartridge. Someone, (I thought in a comment but now I don't see it) claimed the recording was in stereo so upon returning from a trip to Seattle I played it using a stereo cartridge and? Yes, it's a fine stereo recording! Fine in that RVG kept it "natural", using stereo simply to produce space. Collapsing it to mono either with a mono cartridge or a "mono"... Read More