The 2025 Audiophile Editors and Writers Records of the Year and MUSE AwardsThe 2025 Audiophile Editors and Writers Records of the Year and MUSE Awards

The Genesis of a Group

This one is brief and to the point.

Fine audio at its best is a passion for fine recordings of music by great artists.

If that's not true of your relationship to audio, then you'll have to examine yourself to see if your love is for gear first, with no particular deep feeling for recorded music.

For it is the first sentence above that drives the members of this committee:

Myles Astor, Senior Editor at Positive Feedback; Chief Honcho of audionirvana.com

Jeff Day, Senior Associate Editor at Positive Feedback; Founder and Editor of "Jeff's Place" at Positive Feedback

Tom Gibbs, Reviewer at Positive Feedback

Dan Meinwald, Proprietor of EAR USA

Marc Philips, Editor of Part-Time Audiophile

Paul Seydor, Senior Contributor/Reviewer, The Absolute Sound

Greg Weaver, Senior Editor at Positive Feedback; Editor of the audio analyst

Dr. David W. Robinson, Positive Feedback, Chair

This community arose out of an earlier awards group, the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society (LAOS). For a handful of years, the people above served on its ARYA (Audiophile Recordings of the Year Award) committee, which produced nominations for the best new and reissue recordings, and then sorted and voted for the winners. We also produced the MUSE Award for best lifetime achievements/contributions to the audio arts. It was good fun with an engaging group of fellow lovers of first-rate musical recording projects.

At the end of 2024 the LAOC made the decision to discontinue the ARYA and MUSE, and shift to a single award by Michael Fremer.

After consideration, over half of the remaining members of the old ARYA committee (see list above) decided to continue our model as an independent group. As before, we would nominate titles for the Best New Issue recording, the Best Reissue recording, and our MUSE Award for the lifetime achievement/contributions to the audio arts.

This year's award winners are as follows:

Best New Issue

Maria Dueñas, Paganini: 24 Caprices – Caprices by Berlioz, Cervelló, Kreisler, Ortiz, Saint-Saëns, Sarasate, Wieniawski. Deutsche Grammophon LP.

Best Reissue

Yes, Fragile, Atlantic 75 Audiophile Series by Analogue Productions. (APA 014-45), 2 x Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Album, Limited Edition, Numbered, Reissue, Stereo, 180g, Gatefold.

2025 MUSE Award

Chad Kassem, Acoustic Sounds/Analogue Productions/Quality Record Pressings

Chad Kassem: a fantasy portrait in Water Color mode, AXPONA 2023

There were other nominations, and the voting was close, but Chad Kassem took this year's MUSE Award. Given his extraordinary accomplishments over the years, this recognition was well deserved.

Remember that our MUSE Awards are given only once. Next year will feature another deserving name.

So...

It was a lot of work. A lot happens behind the scenes of any awards group; if you've done it, you know; if you haven't...well, you don't.

But the results this year are quite satisfying. Our committee congratulates our winners for 2025!