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If you've followed along with some of my other articles, you may have picked up on how much I admire the recordings made by Bert van der Wolf of Northstar Recording Services (see HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE). Bert ranks very highly among a small group of highly talented independent recording and mastering engineers whom... Read More »

Is your system where you want it to be? How would you know? There are a number of "test records" for you to get a sense of your progress that feature pink noise, white noise, and other noises can help you do that. If your perspective arises from science or testing, those can be good... Read More »

Clifford Everett "Bud" Shank (1926-2009) was an American sax player and flautist regularly mentioned as being one of the preeminent exponents of the subgenre commonly known as West Coast jazz. Call it West Coast jazz, or even Cool jazz, if you will; it's freely associated with the likes of Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Stan Getz,... Read More »

On what would have been his centennial, Craft Recordings has releasing the complete recordings of jazz guitarist extraordinaire Wes Montgomery's seminal 1962 live date, Full House. Which in its new guise, The Complete Full House Recordings, presents everything recorded on June 25, 1962 at the short-lived Berkeley, California coffee house and jazz hotspot, Tsubo. Compiling... Read More »

Craft Recordings has just released Hot House: The Complete Jazz At Massey Hall Recordings, which is an expanded reissue of the original album, The Quintet: Jazz At Massey Hall. The event took place on May 13, 1953, at Toronto, Canada's Massey Hall, and the gathering of jazz giants Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles... Read More »

Rhino Entertainment has released The Yes Album: Super Deluxe Edition (SDE) in a stunning new multi disc package that includes media choices to suit all listeners. The really unique package features an LP-sized gatefold that opens to reveal the same photograph of keyboardist Tony Kaye that's spread across both inner panels of the original album... Read More »

I've written here and there about my preference for listening to 32-bit PCM versus 24-bit PCM files (either 352.8kHz or 384kHz). When there is no Pure DSD256 file available because the file has been post processed in PCM, these 32-bit files have become my preferred alternative for sonic enjoyment, even over the DSD256 files that... Read More »

I'm excited about this most recent group of Recent Finds, all released over this past year at NativeDSD. Included are a great new album from Carmen Gomes and Sound Liaison, a new Rembrandt Frerichs album on Just Listen Records, Anna Fedorova and Dana Zemtsov on Channel Classics, several albums from the Navis Classics label which... Read More »

It's been five years since I organized and posted a shootout on this title. Click HERE if you would like to read that article. After several requests from readers for a comparison, three of my audiophile buddies joined me for a wonderful two nights of fun. This kind of thing might sound a little over... Read More »

As far back as can I remember, organ music has brought me pleasure. Whether it's the sound of a small pipe organ in a small church, an electronic organ, the huge pipe organ at UCLA's Royce Hall accompanying an orchestra, or a theater organ with huge pipes, bells, and percussion, I love the way organ... Read More »

DVOŘÁK, Symphony 6; Husitská Overture. Milwaukee Symphony/Zdeněk Mácal. Koss Classics KC-1001.  TT: 57.59 I was looking forward to hearing this, finally. I'd always been pleased by the sound of Koss headphones in various price ranges—though you'd not have mistaken them for Grado or Sennheiser—and I was anticipating engineering of comparably high, possibly audiophile quality. So Husitská, the... Read More »

Impex Records is celebrating the 35th anniversary of Jennifer Warnes' groundbreaking Famous Blue Raincoat with a three-LP, 45 rpm, 1STEP reissue of Warnes' classic 1986 album that has gone on to become an enduring audiophile perennial. For what will surely represent the album's penultimate vinyl release, Jennifer Warnes agreed to supply her personal, first-generation analog... Read More »

Cartografía del Mar (Maps of the Sea), André Cebrián, Pedro Mateo Gonzalez. Eudora Records 2023 (Pure DSD256) HERE I am in love with this stunningly great Pure DSD256 recording from Gonzalo Noqué at Eudora Records! Gonzalo has made some excellent Pure DSD256 recordings over the past several years, but this is perhaps his best recording... Read More »

High Definition Tape Transfers (HDTT) has been very busy these past few months with some excellent new releases of some of the best recordings from both classical music and jazz. I previously shared my thoughts about their DSD256/DXD reissue of Reiner's performance of Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije and Stravinsky's Song of the Nightingale (reviewed HERE) which I... Read More »

This isn't the first time that I've expressed my love for sampler LPs, and it probably won't be the last. Some of them sound awful, but the ones that sound great are a pleasure to own. One of the main reasons I love samplers is because they provide me the opportunity to hear songs and... Read More »

Welcome to Ho, Ho, Ho, mistletoe, and all that jazz once again! Craft Recordings brings us another selection of Christmas albums this year, and they're certain to brighten any holiday celebration. Included among Craft's offerings is an expanded reissue version of the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas, available as Super Deluxe Edition CD/BluRay sets and... Read More »

Prokofiev Lieutenant Kije, Stravinsky Song of the Nightingale, Fritz Reiner, Chicago Symphony Orchestra. HDTT 1958 2023 (DSD256, DXD) HERE One of the glories of the RCA Living Stereo catalog now in glorious sonics from HDTT. These recordings of Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije (1957) and Stravinsky's Song of a Nightingale (1956) performed by Fritz Reiner and the... Read More »

There are many reasons to collect records, and the best and most common reason is for the music. However, if you also care about sound, and you own a high end audio system, the sound can be, as it is to me, just as important. You can also collect LPs like people collect stamps and... Read More »

A portrait of Dean Waters at Pacific Audio Fest 2023 (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) In November of 2023 Chandos Records released their seventh album in their Music in Exile series. Each album in this series of recordings focuses on a different composer who was forced to flee their homeland to avoid... Read More »