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Rhino Entertainment has another eclectic and impressive slate of limited-edition LPs available for Record Store Day Black Friday coming on November 29th. Once again, Rhino's offering of 21 rarities, enhanced, and specialty releases are only a few of the hundreds of exciting albums that will be available from both online sources and at independent record... Read More »

Craft Recordings has announced a striking offering of limited-edition LPs for the upcoming Black Friday celebration of Record Store Day 2024 on November 29th. Once again, Craft is presenting a diverse selection of rarities and specialty releases that will be among the hundreds of ultra-desirable LPs available online and at independent record stores everywhere. For... Read More »

Early this year, I flim-flammed Vera-Fi Audio main man Mark Schifter into sending me one of his new Vanguard Caldera 10 subwoofers. I was desperately in need of ultra-low bass following the untimely demise of my beloved REL T9, which had been a true and faithful servant for a dozen years. I honestly had no... Read More »

When I wrote about The Blue Things I expressed my general distaste for cult bands and cult singers. And the reason is because mediocre cult bands cast huge shadows over great bands and singers who deserve our attention, like the above-mentioned The Blue Things. However, there are cult musicians who deserve their cult status. Emitt... Read More »

It was at the 2023 Munich High End Show that I discovered some truly remarkable loudspeakers, the Lorenzo Audio Labs LM1 from Spain. They were music to my ears; the speakers rendered music effortlessly with detail, transparency, nuance, and realism, making it seem like I was listening to live music.  I was surprised and very... Read More »

First, Some Personal Backstory And Perspective Please be patient with me as I step you through some personal backstory. When IMPEX released the 33 RPM reissue for Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra in late 2020, it was somewhat of an inspiration for me. I always enjoyed Frank as my father was a big fan... Read More »

By far, the most common blind spot that most audiophiles I have met and chatted with seem to have, is the lack of awareness of the importance of the quality of power that they feed into their audio system. I have encountered audiophiles that have spent high six figure amounts on their system but have... Read More »

In 2020 Jeff Spalls introduced the Audiomods Series Six tonearm, providing many analog hobbyists with an opportunity to experience excellent yet affordable analog playback. Shortly after the Series Six's introduction, two significant events altered the audio landscape for many of us. First, the Ichikawa Jewel Company LTD shuttered its doors, leading to the loss of... Read More »

Schumann Symphony 4 (orig. vers.); Manfred Overture. Yun: Cello Concerto. Jaemin Han, cello; Korean National Symphony Orchestra/David Reiland. Decca Records (Korea). Downloads and streams: music.apple.com; plixid.net (FLAC 24/96); qobuz.com (16/44.1); spotify.com; uk.7digital.com (M4A, MP3, FLAC) Universal, the current parent company of Decca and Deutsche Grammophon, has been unusually unforthcoming about this particular production. Although it was listed in... Read More »

Over the course of my audiophile journey, I've owned, reviewed, or auditioned many different types of loudspeakers, from electrostatic to planar, from dynamic to horn-loaded, in a myriad of configurations. The one transducer variant that I've not had the opportunity to experience in any meaningful sense is a point-source design. Curious to see what I... Read More »

Four years ago, Impex Records contracted a pair of Grammy award-winning engineers and tasked them with reviving the original analog tapes for Frank Sinatra's transitional masterpiece, 1950's Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra. Andreas Meyer of Swan Studios handled the restoration and transfer of the original tapes, and Chris Bellman of Bernie Grundman Mastering mastered... Read More »

Rhino Entertainment has launched their Roctober and Now Playing Fall 2024 LP series, which combined feature 48 limited edition LP releases, with many of them being offered in ultra-cool colored-vinyl versions. The release package covers a broad range of artists and musical genres, and includes catalog album reissues, rare and long out-of-print LPs, previously never-released... Read More »

Craft Recordings has a diverse slate of new release and reissue albums that they're offering heading into the last part of 2024, and I have a generous handful of them here for your consideration. As is typical for Craft, their new releases will appeal to a range of musical interests, and feature rare, long out-of-print,... Read More »

"They're boxy, but they're good." That was the slogan coined for Volvo cars by Dudley Moore's unhinged ad exec in the mediocre 1990 movie farce, Crazy People, which imagined what might happen if marketers started writing painfully honest ads. Regarding Goldring's $549 1012GX, I couldn't help but think along the same lines: looks old fashioned,... Read More »

Audeze strikes again with its new CRBN 2 reference electrostatic headphones! Weighing in at 480 grams versus 300 grams for the original CRBN, with increased depth of the leather ear cups and housing, significantly improved and perfected 2nd generation nano-tube technology drivers, and a patent pending passive technology to enhance deep bass, the Audeze CRBN2... Read More »

"Dean Waters: Portrait with Cigar." PAF 2023, SeaTac, WA The Mola Mola Makua Preamp, front-top oblique view In June of this year, I had a wonderful opportunity to attend High End in Munich. With an attendance of well over 20,000, it is certainly one of the largest, if not the largest, trade shows for the... Read More »

A little over 10 years ago, Canadian melodic hardcore band, Counterparts, released their groundbreaking album The Difference Between Hell and Home. An eleven track foray into a variety of emotional themes, death, religion, depression, love, and the lack thereof. Counterparts set the stage for an emerging genre, and continued building a musical movement today. Over... Read More »

My eyes welled with tears staring at a glorious reproduction of Edgar Degas' painting, The Orchestra at the Opera, in a massive book in the reference section of the University of California, Riverside Library. As an art student in 1990, I was overwhelmed by the virtuosity, draftsmanship, rhythmic composition, and sheer beauty of a bassoonist—captured... Read More »

I am not a music reviewer. Never done that before as I never saw that as something I could do with respect to being faithful to the artist and their music. Pretty much a whole different thing than reviewing audio gear. Of which, that is hard enough. But, out of nowhere I get an album... Read More »