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Craft Recordings' has just released the sixth installment in their premium Small Batch audiophile LP series with a reissue of Isaac Hayes' 1969 sophomore effort, Hot Buttered Soul. Long considered a landmark release of Sixties soul music, Hot Buttered Soul created the template that would serve as the launching pad for Isaac Hayes' future successes... Read More »

Sony Music Entertainment, Columbia Records, and Legacy Recordings have just reissued Alice In Chains' classic 1994 EP Jar of Flies in a 30th Anniversary special edition. Jar of Flies, despite only being an EP, was one of Alice In Chains most important releases, and included several of their biggest hits from the 1990s. The EP... Read More »

Impex Records has just released another of their incredible 1STEP 45 rpm LP box sets, this time featuring the classic Bossa Nova album Getz/Gilberto. Impex's 1STEP process is fairly labor-intensive, in that it requires cutting a new set of lacquers for every pressing run of 500 LPs. This nearly insane level of precision guarantees that... Read More »

The Zesto Audio Andros Spirit Phonostage (image courtesy of Zesto Audio) The new Zesto Audio Andros Spirit Phonostage is an inexpensive wonder. It is so precisely cut from the same cloth as the Andros II and Deluxe II, all tubes all the time, that the audiophile will forget the small differences and accept the Spirit... Read More »

Who the heck was Bill Snyder? Based on the scarce info I could find, William P. Snyder (1916-2011), from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, was America's most recorded light music pianist during the 1950s. Unfortunately for Bill's legacy, today's music lovers don't listen to the dim lit sound of light pianists, especially on mono LPs from... Read More »

Dean Waters at Pacific Audio Fest 2023: A Portrait with a Cigar. (Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson)  About four months ago I received a Mola-Mola Tambaqui DAC and a Mola-Mola Perca stereo amplifier from Bill Parish at GTT Audio, and I've been using them as my daily-driver since then with much glee... Read More »

Bella Sound is the brain child of Michael Vice. Educated at UC Berkeley and Stanford in Physics and Electrical Engineering, Mike has poured his decades of experience and over 40 patents into his unique designs. Bella Sound's products include amplifiers, a power conditioner, and power cords, all based on Mike's conceptually novel approach, and married... Read More »

I've been reviewing a ton of LPs over the last few years, and to enhance my review process, I set up a dedicated, all-analog system in one of my audio rooms. That system features dual turntables from ProJect and Rega, a PS Audio Stellar phono preamp, a PrimaLuna tube integrated amp, and a pair of... Read More »

  WAY Cables Poetry X Analogue XLR interconnects   Despite having access to a pretty wide range of very enticing gear, I really try to avoid the marry go round of constantly swapping gear in and out of my reference system. I made big changes about 3 years ago and before that it had been over... Read More »

Silvestrov, Postludium No. 3. Matt Haimovitz, cello; Nadia Shpachenko, piano. Pentatone Music PTC5187305 (digital single). TT: 4.53. It's been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, and Pentatone has chosen to mark the date with this single track of music by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. (To have labelled the release as "A Celebration of Ukrainian Culture," however, is... Read More »

I've had the immense pleasure of being able to evaluate a number of Impex Records' excellent LP releases over the last year or so, with results that have been uniformly superb. That list includes unexpectedly great albums, like Barbra Streisand's triumphal Live at the Bon Soir and the truly magnificent Al Di Meola/John McLaughlin/Paco De... Read More »

Playing vinyl is some of the most fun you can have in this hobby. Sliding a record out of its sleeve and setting it on the platter, throwing a switch and watching a turntable to come up to speed, cueing down a tonearm and hearing that satisfying sound of when the stylus contacts the record.... Read More »

My old friend and former roommate, Dave, suggested that I write about my Leni Okehu record. What a cool idea. The music is a boatload of fun, it's beautifully recorded, and Dave and I used to love the way it sounded on his ADS L880 speakers. The album's title is Hawaiian Holiday (International Award Series... Read More »

To paraphrase Lawrence Welk: there are more new turntables than ever to choose from, good and bad, and this is certainly one of them. That's actually how a lot of reviews seem to go these days, and who can blame the poor writers? With seemingly every audio (and audio-adjacent) brand either getting into the turntable... Read More »

Craft Recordings has announced the first group of new titles for 2024 in their Original Jazz Classics (OJC) reboot, featuring three albums that were released within months of each other in 1962. Those include the classic Cannonball Adderley with Bill Evans session, Know What I Mean?, along with the equally classic Art Blakey & the... Read More »

The Rhino High Fidelity Premium Vinyl Series continues with the release of two new titles, and as with the previous group of offerings, the selections are eclectic. The one constant is that Rhino has again chosen both rock and jazz titles, featuring Marquee Moon (1977, Elektra Records) from art-punk darlings Television and avant-garde saxophonist Ornette... Read More »

A Swiss Digital Fuse Box (SDFB for short) is a $395 device that replaces the generic $2 power fuse in high performance audio gear. Yes, you read that right. It is also potentially the most disruptive audiophile add-on since…what?…the subwoofer?… the power conditioner? Sorry, but your THC gummies don't qualify. So let us first consider... Read More »

On March 1st, Craft Recordings is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the eponymous debut record from folk/punk pioneers Violent Femmes with a new box set, Violent Femmes: 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. Craft is offering expanded reissues of the band's groundbreaking first album with multi-disc box sets available in a variety of formats. My supplied review... Read More »

Craft Recordings celebrates the 30th anniversary of southern alternative rockers Collective Soul with their reissue of the band's 7even Year Itch: Greatest Hits 1994-2001, available for the first time in the LP format. The Stockbridge, Georgia band's debut album, 1994's Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid, was a surprise hit that took them from absolute... Read More »