If you click on a writer's name it will take you to a page showing a clickable link to every review by that writer! Try it! You'll like it. Read More

It may seem odd for Blue Note to reissue Jason Moran’s Ten on two LPs as part of its Classic Vinyl series. For one thing, it was recorded in 2010, a bit recent to be deemed a classic. For another, contrary to the “hype sticker” (and unlike most titles in the series), it was not “mastered from the original analog tapes,” as the album was recorded digitally. (Blue Note has since acknowledged the error.) Nonetheless, the album fits the category. The sound quality, though... Read More

Obviously, MoFi Electronics has not gone into the cartridge making business, though it does manufacture its own turntables and phono preamp. The lineup of three cartridges appears to be manufactured per Allen Perkins' order by Audio-Technica, which has of late been doing this for a number of American companies.The $999 StudioSilver is the middle of the three cartridge line, with the MasterTracker MM below and the $1495 UltraGold MC above. A value-packed cartridge... Read More

It’s no secret that with vinyl once again popular, many well-known brands eager to enter or re-enter the turntable market have them manufactured at the same well-established, highly capable Taiwanese factory using familiar looking parts. It doesn’t take an ”eagle eye” to spot the similarities. Other companies, like Canada-based Fluance.com, once an “upstart” but now well-established, do likewise. Most of these turntables are not “branding exercises”, in which a... Read More

About 23 pages into “Revolución to Roxy”, you’ll find eight-year-old Phil Manzanera carrying a small tray of cake and Cuban coffee to a man across the road standing watch over an empty house. By way of thanks the guard gives him a “broad smile” and then, as a sort of improvised firecracker, sets off a pinch of gun powder from an empty .303 shell. That’s just one charming glimpse into the life of the Roxy Music guitarist at a time that was otherwise lit up by the... Read More

Great titles, oft-released, first time on UHQR. What else is there to say? At least until we get to hear it. Read More

BINGHAMTON, NY – July 1, 2024 – McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., the premier name in audio excellence, proudly announces the release of SESSIONS Volume 1, a jazz album featuring eight original compositions by The Peter Erskine Quartet. Produced with iconic mastering studio Sterling Sound, this unique collaboration results in an album worthy of the world’s most discerning listeners – McIntosh customers – with the goal of creating the best sounding record possible, while... Read More

The plan was an on-stage interview with Patrick Leonard, whose new double LP album "It's All Comes Down To Mood" is due end of July. Patrick produced all of Madonna's early Warner Brothers Records, Amused to Death for Roger Waters, two of the final three Leonard Cohen records (he wrote or co-wrote songs on all three), as well as Elton John's Songs From the West Coast. There's more but that's enough! I wrote an essay published in the... Read More

Would you like to attend a recording session at Rudy Van Gelder's legendary Englewood Cliffs studio featuring saxophone great Joe Lovano? Of course you would! I was lucky enough to attend one—the only invited journalist—last May 19th, four days after returning from Switzerland following High End 2024. Here's the story. The old audiophile riddle "How do you make $1,000,000 in the audio business? Answer: "start with $2,000,000" didn't... Read More

The sum - it’s said - is always greater than the parts. Rockpile may have only released one album, but 1980’s Seconds of Pleasure stands as a prime example of that adage. Nick Lowe (guitar, vocals) and Dave Edmunds (guitar, vocals) were the band's star power, but they brought more than just their entertainment acumen to the table; with them came their longtime musical cohorts Billy Bremner (vocals, guitar) and Terry Williams on “drums, drums, drums” (as the liner... Read More

Below is the press release for a new and some might think surprising "One-Step" audiophile vinyl release for three classic Linkin Park releases, under the "Because Sound Matters" banner relaunched by Warner Records, which now has an online store using that name. "Because Sound Matters" was a vinyl series originally created almost twenty years ago by Tom "Grover" Biery when he was working at Warner Brothers Records. The vinyl... Read More

Countless pieces of music written by 20th-century (and later) composers are very accessible, listenable, and rewarding. Here are a few.

Hi-Fi has long been very good to Duke Ellington, beginning in 1950 when long playing records and tape recording allowed him to finally deliver Masterpieces by Ellington an album of previously impossible to release to the home listening public, live concert length arrangements of his most popular and enduring compositions. Until then only attendees of his live concerts got to hear them.Finally Ellington was freed from the constraints of the three minute 78rpm... Read More

Nesconset, NY, June 25, 2024 -- EAT (European Audio Team), the company whose high-performance products are designed to bring listeners as close as possible to the meaning and spirit of the original performance, offers the flagship Fortissimo S turntable in North America via VANA Ltd., its NY-based distribution partner. The Fortissimo S (SRP: $8,000, minus tonearm) is a significant step up from the company’s popular Forte S turntable, with a massive 50 lb., 15.75”... Read More

(This feature originally appeared in Issue 7, Spring 1996.)He didn’t play an instrument and he didn’t sing, but Brian Eno was in the band, and the band was Roxy Music. So what exactly did Eno (full name Brian Peter George St. John de Baptiste de la Salle Eno—wouldn’t you shorten it?) do for Roxy Music, which he co-founded in London with Bryan Ferry back in 1972? Listen to Stranded, the first Eno-free Roxy album and you’ll hear something missing. Or, listen to the... Read More