Unlike most "completest" or multi-disc sets containing every snippet of recorded tape that you might listen to once out of curiosity and never again revisit, this thoughtfully curated set covering just Nick Drake's debut album is one that bears repeated listening. It's been on the turntable almost constantly since it arrived shortly after publishing the review of Brad Mehldau's Elliott Smith tribute Ride Into the Sun in which the pianist... Read More

The Doors: a group that has more compilations than actual studio releases. Longtime fans will whinge at nauseam when an anniversary passes and the major label earwigs grace record store shelves with another ‘ultimate’ or ‘best of’ collection. Regardless of the oversaturation of releases such as those, it engrains the self-marketed ‘Band from Venice’ in the public’s consciousness, or subjects novices to the Lizard King ethos. Their discography is even more complex when... Read More

Fluance reps asked to meet at Munich High End this past spring and I agreed thinking it would be new turntable pitch but instead it was a request for a $399.99/pr. powered Bluetooth bookshelf loudspeaker review. Big surprise, but why not hear what's possible for $399.99? I wasn't expecting much, but got an earful!Fluance shipped a pair in walnut that were placed adjacent to our family room Panasonic plasma television (family is 2 of us, 4 dogs and 2 cats) on... Read More

Green Bay,Wisconsin, August 2025: The Return of a Legend – London Decca Cartridges Reborn!After a quiet three decades, the near-mythical London Decca cartridges have returned under new ownership, with a seasoned design and manufacturing team. Until recently, the cartridges’ global cult following acquired the limited production examples made available through Presence Audio. But this is not just a comeback for the existing models. Under new guidance, the London Decca... Read More

1975 was a weird year for pop music. The Captain and Tennille had the best-selling single of the year with “Love Will Keep Us Together.” Meanwhile, Neil Young was parked in the ditch, wasted at the wake on Tonight’s The Night. Just over the guardrail, Bob Dylan returned from his own surreal excursions. Queen released the biggest song of their career. While the Carpenters were snuggled up in their parent-pleasing inoffensive confections, Led Zeppelin dealt blockbuster... Read More

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—PARAMUS, NJ — Aug.11, 2025 — The sounds of vinyl will once again echo through the halls of the Westfield's Garden State Plaza with the grand opening of The Sharp Notes, a new record store owned and operated by New Jersey-based educator, musician, and music journalist Evan Toth.Located in the heart of Paramus, NJ, The Sharp Notes brings back the golden-era thrill of physical media—reimagined for 21st-century ears. The store specializes in... Read More

Jazzed by the positive review here of Ortofon's X40 moving coil cartridge, a friend asked what he should do for a step up solution. He liked his excellent sounding Graham Slee MM phono preamp and wanted to keep using it. There's nothing worse in an analog audio chain than a bad step up transformer and known good ones don't come cheap. You can take a chance on a step up transformer you find on Ebay (and admittedly I saw a few good known used ones), but... Read More

THE ZOMBIES, “BRITISH INVASION” PIONEERS, ANNOUNCE THE RELEASE OF THEIR ALBUM ODESSEY AND ORACLE MONO REMASTERED ON SEPTEMBER 26TH VIA BEECHWOOD PARK RECORDS LISTEN TO THE MONO REMASTERED VERSION OF“THIS WILL BE OUR YEAR” HERE Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees and “British Invasion” pioneers, The Zombies, today announce the release of Odessey & Oracle Mono Remastered on September 26th. The album, the first of four definitive physical reissues from their... Read More

One needn't be an Elliott Smith fan or even know who he was to appreciate Brad Mehldau's rich musical examination of emotional light and darkness using the late singer/songwriter's creativity as a guide to understanding "visionary depressives" generally, and specifically Smith and his often sad and dark, but simultaneously uplifting music. Smith fans are legion, intense, and like Nick Drake, another "visionary depressive", even in... Read More

Bill Janovitz's in depth history of The Cars puts the pride of Boston pop under detailed examination

Mapleshade Records was a haven for jazz-loving audiophiles in the 1990s, a label that combined very good music and excellent sound quality in an era when digital—which, in its early days, usually meant lousy sound—was sweeping through the mainstream industry. Mapleshade’s proprietor-engineer, Pierre Sprey, recorded all his albums on analog tape, with austere minimalism: just two microphones (sometimes three), no processing, not even a mixing board. He stacked bricks... Read More

The San Francisco Audiophile Foundation recently invited me to interview John Curl—a true audio designing legend whose decades spanning career includes working for Ampex, Mark Levinson, Parasound, Constellation and many other companies as well as designing a few equally legendary products he self-marketed like the Blowtorch and Vendetta Research preamps. Phono preampfification is a particular Curl speciality.Keeping Mr. Curl on the "straight and narrow" was... Read More

(Press release): Two of the most iconic West Coast jazz recordings return in definitive form: Way Out West by Sonny Rollins and Art Pepper Meets The Rhythm Section, now available as Ultra High Quality Record (UHQR) editions for pre-order via Analogue Productions. Pressed on 200-gram Clarity Vinyl at Quality Record Pressings and cut at 45 RPM for the highest fidelity possible, these limited editions—each capped at 2,750 numbered copies—are mastered AAA directly from... Read More

Never deemed ‘cool’ in the eyes of the mainstream and scowled by record critics, Canadian trio Rush were the textbook definition of ‘the people’s band.’ Guitarist Alex Lifeson, drummer Neil Peart, and bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Geddy Lee were anomalies amongst contemporaries who praised rock’s lewd and lascivious side. Their body of work explored science fiction, fantasy-driven, and philosophical lyrical realms while adapting to whatever musical climate they were... Read More

Guetersloh, Germany / Charlotte, North Carolina / Cleveland, Ohio – 4. August 2025 – Sonopress, a global leader in media manufacturing, is proud to announce a new partnership with Gotta Groove Records, a highly respected U.S.-based vinyl production company. As part of this collaboration, Gotta Groove Records will offer the innovative EcoRecord, Sonopress’s environmentally friendly LP record solution, to its customers in the United States.

Amina Claudine Myers should be a lot more famous than she is. A composer-pianist-organist-singer of spiritual depth and grand virtuosity, she has been recording, as a leader or accompanist, for nearly a half century, but mainly for small labels and as a member of an alliance—the avant-garde Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), which also spawned the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, and many others—that didn’t (and... Read More

This past May I visited the Munich High-End show for the very first and, as it turns out, last time. Next year the exhibition will take place at the beginning of June in Vienna, the city that served for centuries as the capital of the Hapsburg empire before it collapsed at the close of World War I. Despite Munich’s displacement, the mood at this year’s show was anything but funereal. I was pumped to discover a passel of enjoyable and exciting audio exhibits, including... Read More

Revisiting a rave review can be uncomfortable. Was the product as good as you’d written it was? As conceptually groundbreaking and sonically spectacular as you’d described it? You never know until you return to it, unless of course you bought it and regularly use it, and even then, sometimes after a while you say to yourself “What was I thinking?” Or that but laced with expletives.The Supatrac Blackbird Farpoint got a rave review, and I bought it, but it’s not been in... Read More