Technics introduced these new $299.00 earbuds early last December to a group of editors, journalists and influencers at a Kyoto, Japan press event. The big launch was earlier this week at CES. Other than me and I think a writer from What Hi-Fi in the U.K. the "audiophile press" was absent. I travel a lot —I am a million miler on United and I always bring music and headphones. I've got multiple pairs of small "in ear" models from various... Read More

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

Reviewing, or judging the sound of audio gear at hi-fi shows is a fool's errand. I've written that before and I'll never stop writing it as long as some reviewers insist upon doing so in lousy sounding hotel rooms, I don't care the size. Sometimes good sound does happen and of course it should be pointed out and lauded and there are some exhibitors who know how to work around bad acoustics and bad electricity to achieve acceptable sound (High Water... Read More

1971 was a pivotal year for R&B/soul music. Stevie Wonder's Where I'm Coming From was released in April. Marvin Gaye's What's Going On was released in May. Maggot Brain by Funkadelic was released in July, Curtis Mayfield's Curtis in September, and Sly's There's a Riot Goin’ On in November. All of these albums were entirely composed of original music and expressed the disappointment, despair, and anger of young Black people living... Read More

In 2019 Yuya Uchida, the father of rock & roll in Japan, passed away at age 79. Uchida was not an instrumentalist, and he never found fame as a singer, but his fingerprint was on much of the guitar-driven music infecting Japan from the late 1950s through the early 1970s. After a brief career releasing some early Elvis-inspired rock and roll singles at the dawn of the 60s, his passion was reinvigorated when the Beatles came to Tokyo in 1966 to perform five nights... 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.

Of all the '60s era artists that expanded their craft to unfathomable heights, The Velvet Underground was arguably the most adventurous. Few if any other contemporaries sought to work in unorthodox approaches to both instrumentation (drones, detuned guitars, and distortion) and subject matter (drug use, S&M, and prostitution). These approaches appear prominently on their first two albums, The Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat. A key... Read More

The trio of pianist Bill Evans, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Paul Motian is one of the most influential in jazz, yet the group laid down just three recording sessions over an 18-month period from December 1959 till June 1961--two studio sets (which formed two separate albums, Portrait in Jazz and Explorations) and one live date (spread out over two albums, Waltz for Debby and Sunday Afternoon at the Village Vanguard). The live albums, which rank as the best... Read More

Reading the press release while listening to this effervescent, ornately orchestrated instantly likable set of new, yet nostalgic tunes, it wasn't surprising to discover that modern day "crooner" L.C. Franke's musical roots at least for this record were anchored in his grandmother Elsie's "dusty" record collection (crooner in quotes because his singing style is more straightforward, though the tunes and arrangements could be used by... Read More

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).

Rarely does regret sound so affirming, loss so found, emptiness so filling, distance so near and dated so au courant as do those dark sentiments on this collection of woe filled songs that though relentlessly morose, somehow bring to the listener peace and resolve.Though the Welch/Rawlings musical style remains fixed in mountain balladry and many of the themes are timeless, there's modernity too in "Hashtag"—an unrelentingly down road song about chasing... Read More

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.

Imagine a young Miles Davis fan's excitement back in 1973 spying a new compilation titled BASIC MILES The Classic Performances of Miles Davis (C32025) only to find that it was a seemingly haphazardly chosen set of tracks, and worse, that the asterisked ones had been "Electronically Re-Recorded to Simulate Stereo". But reading the discography on the jacket before putting it back in the bin, the second track "Stella By Starlight" listed the... Read More

Ortofon has long marketed a tonearm made in Japan to its specifications. For the recently introduced 12" AS-309R, the latest revision to Ortofon's tonearm, Ortofon provides few specifics other than "130 redesigned components.... crafted with unparalleled mechanical precision and advanced engineering". The company doesn't divulge what any of those parts are, or how and why they were redesigned.The additional 'boilerplate" marketing... Read More

Impex Records releases a new 1step, 45-rpm remastering of Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra, one of Sinatra's most important albums yet one that is often neglected despite the fact that it occupies a watershed place in his development as a singer and recording artist.

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

In old school animation—the way Disney and Warner Brothers did it way back when— rough drawings of the action were sketched on paper by the animators, who then flipped through the pages to see what they've drawn come to rough life. Once these roughs met with their approval they handed them off to secondary animators usually referred to as "in-betweeners" who produced the drawings that go in between what the animators hand them, thus producing the... Read More