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

Free was one of the great unappreciated late '60's era rock bands. Sure, they had a hit with "All Right Now", but like Stealers Wheel with "Stuck in the Middle", that song is catchy with a barbed hook, but that's about all. Free was a band that simmered: dark, brooding, deep and thoughtful. The albums leading up to Fire and Water didn't sell, and Highway, the one following the big seller, flopped too. The group did better in the... 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

The first question you have to ask yourself before buying any of the three iterations of this album is how much do you like it? The second question to ask is how much do you wish to know about it? How deep a dive do you wish to take?UMe recently held a press event at the Dolby screening room in New York City in which the Atmos mix was played and many of the musicians were on hand for a Q&A. Jim Keltner was on the road with Bob Dylan so he appeared in a live video.... Read More

Because I was involved in the vinyl production of this record (credited as “Vinyl Shepherd”) I didn’t feel it appropriate to review it. So I enlisted Morgan Enos to do it. Mr. Enos’s partial resume: “Former Staff Writer at GRAMMY.com. His features, essays, and interviews, which encompass jazz, classic rock, hip-hop, and other spheres, have also appeared in Fortune, Billboard, JazzTimes, uDiscover Music, and other platforms”. The album debuts today with pre-orders on the familiar sites including the “buy now” button at the review bottom, where you can get more details.

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

The problem with records like this is that they tell you how mediocre sounding many of your records are—unless your collection consists only of "audiophile" records, of which there are two kinds: "sounds great, less filling", or more rarely, "sounds great, is filling". For younger readers, that's a play on the old Miller Lite commercial: "tastes great, less filling".McIntosh Sessions celebrates the company's 75th... Read More

Gryphon Audio just introduced its first entry into the power conditioning universe.

Denmark based Dynaudio designs and manufactures loudspeaker systems for professional studios, car audio, and home hi-fi, all using advanced driver technology engineered and developed in-house. When Dynaudio's John Quick offered the opportunity to review the Evoke 30s, I was absolutely stoked. Though I've been impressed by casual listenings to their stand-mount Special 40, I've never had the chance to spend quality time with a pair of Dynaudio speakers.... Read More

Based on some of the comments on this site under the original announcement of these UHQR Bill Evans releases you might think the subtitle quote was someone's reference to Analogue Productions Chad Kassem, but it's actually from annotator Ira Gitler's original liner notes for Sunday at the Village Vanguard. His point was that being a jazz critic doesn't mean he can't melt into the music and drop the analytical side of his reviewer brain. These... Read More