ZZ Top's third, released July, 1973 was the group's breakthrough set, peaking at #8 on the crowded Billboard Top 200. "Boogie-Rock", flavored with Southern Memphisonian (is there such a word?) blues charm produced a unique blend of pulsating rhythmic drive and country charm . Perhaps that's why all these years later the album continues to find new audiences wanting to both "boogie down" and draw close to the southern ether. It's... Read More

After the huge commercial success of Decca’s recording of Wagner’s tetralogy in the late 1950s and early 60s, Deutsche Grammophon decided it was time to throw its hat in the ring (so to speak).  Turning to its star conductor and orchestra - Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic - what emerged was an account very different to Solti’s instant classic, both musically and sonically. Karajan's Ring may not enjoy the notoriety of Solti's account, but it more than holds its own, and for many is preferable.  Marking the 150th Anniversary of the cycle’s first performance at Bayreuth’s inaugural Festival in 1876, DG has turned over the master tapes of Das Rheingold to the technical wizards at Emil Berliner Studios for this Original Source vinyl reissue.  Join me for a deep dive into this groundbreaking opera, Karajan’s distinctive approach to the score, and this important reissue.

(April 24, 2026 - Los Angeles, CA) On June 14, 1970, the Grateful Dead released Workingman’s Dead, an album that was unlike anything they’d ever done, one that showed the world a new side of the Dead. It was clearly the same band as before, but now with a distinctly different sound and approach to the music, pivoting from psychedelic improvisation to folk-rock storytelling for the “everyman,” as the album’s title suggests. Today, Rhino High Fidelitypresents new... Read More

(Press release): (April 17, 2026 - Los Angeles, CA) As the Eagles continue “The Long Goodbye” tour with upcoming performances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and stadiums, Universal Music Enterprises has announced a vinyl and digital reissue of Don Henley’s 6x platinum solo album The End Of The Innocence on June 5, 2026. The album is newly remastered from the original analog tapes (cut from tapes by Chris Bellman, and pressed at Precision_ed.) and will... Read More

Thelonious Alone in San Francisco is the middle of Thelonious Monk’s three solo-piano albums and, to my mind, the most satisfying. It was recorded over two days in October 1959 during his first trip to the Bay Area, where he’d been lured to play sets at the Black Hawk jazz club. Orrin Keepnews, his producer at Riverside Records, Monk’s label at the time, happened to be on the West Coast, so they decided to spend some of their free time making this album. Maybe San... Read More

Review Explosion, our guide to notable recent(-ish) releases and reissues, is finally back, with a burst of shorter reviews of a few records. In this edition: a UMe Vinylphyle reissue of Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun, a half-speed reissue of George Michael’s Faith, Geese’s universally lauded Getting Killed, a reissue of Arthur Russell’s sole 12” as Dinosaur, and an injection-molded Coldplay pressing. More Review Explosions to follow after this one, stay tuned and keep reading.

Hard to believe that today, April 23, 2026 is the golden anniversary of the start of pure punk music. The release of the Ramones eponymous debut album was ground zero for punk and the world would never quite be the same again. I was there and this is how I saw it. First some background. Punk rock is a subgenre of rock and roll with roots in garage rock, but it's generally faster, louder and more aggressive than garage. Punk was a rebellion against the hippie... Read More

There’s a certain kind of progress that doesn’t look like progress at all. It doesn’t arrive with a spec sheet that doubles everything. It doesn’t announce itself with a new acronym or a breakthrough processing engine. It doesn’t even try to convince you it’s better—at least not right away. It just shows up, quietly, carrying the weight of everything that came before it. That’s how it unfolded for me with the BorderPatrol ZOLA DAC.The BorderPatrol ZOLA DAC is a... Read More

As I've already written in the written coverage, AXPONA 2026 was the biggest and best AXPONA ever with spill-over crowds each day and a demographic that skewed younger than ever. It was more like the Warsaw or High End Munich shows and that's good for the high performance audio industry! And that's despite the economic uncertainty. Show organizers included car audio and headphones aimed at a younger crowd but from what I saw, the youngsters were... Read More

To understand what Dejan Nikic has accomplished with the NAT Audio Transmitter EVO monoblocks, it’s worth pulling back the lens a bit, far enough to take in a century of amplifier design, complete with its obsessions, breakthroughs, and the occasional bout of engineering tunnel vision.For decades, the mainstream chased vanishingly low distortion figures, typically achieved through generous applications of global feedback. On a test bench, the results looked... Read More

This album, available on April 18th as a Record Store Day special, is interesting and worthy of your attention on many levels beyond the music, which of course is the main attraction. First, it was co-produced by Charles Tolliver in 1968, 3 years before he and Stanley Cowell founded Strata-East Records. So clearly this was an independently produced project, though Tolliver's new annotation for this "full circle" Strata-East release doesn't provide... Read More

Los Angeles – April 17, 2026 – Though worlds apart sonically, Gang Starr’s Hard To Earn and The Flying Burrito Brothers’ The Gilded Palace of Sin exemplify Vinylphyle’s mission to deliver essential albums across genres with uncompromising sound quality and packaging. Available to order today exclusively via uDiscover Music, both titles are presented in definitive audiophile editions that honor their enduring influence and legacy.The release of The Gilded Palace of Sin... Read More

(press release) Los Angeles – April 17, 2026 – Launched last year to widespread acclaim, Verve Label Group and UMe are thrilled to continue their Verve Vault series in 2026 with an extensive slate of releases, highlighting landmark jazz albums and rare treasures from the deep catalogs of Verve, Impulse!, Mercury, Decca and related imprints. The audiophile vinyl reissue series offers definitive, all-analog 180-gram vinyl pressings newly mastered from the original... Read More

Courtney Barnett is an Australian national treasure. The singer-songwriter’s musical style places the listener within her wandering stream of consciousness, unsheathing layers of raw vulnerability and playful wit. Her 10+ year career isn’t limited to several full-length studio efforts. It also includes a handful of EPs, an instrumental ambient film score, and a collaborative album with Philadelphia’s ‘constant hitmaker’ Kurt Vile. Creature of Habit isn’t only the... Read More

The final tally wasn't required for anyone and everyone in attendance at AXPONA 2026 to know that this show was the best attended AXPONA ever and by a considerable margin. The crowd was 15% larger than last year and the younger demographic—a 52% increase in Gen Z passes—fueled a high energy vibe that began Friday morning and continued throughout the show's three day run.(lead photo show YG Acoustics/Moon Audio big room)The crowd was younger and more diverse,... Read More

Here’s a quick-and-dirty definition of the concept of "Pareto Optimality":

When an item costs only 20% of the price of
the most-expensive similar product,
but it is nonetheless the case that the bargain
product has performance about 80% as good.

John Marks now considers whether Bryston Ltd.'s "Mini" T10 might be Pareto-Optimal.

It’s always interesting to see how bands grow up, especially a band whose younger work is as juvenile as Blink-182’s. In this case, drummer Travis Barker is now dating a Kardashian, bassist/co-frontman Mark Hoppus seems to have a fairly normal existence podcasting and working on other bands’ records, and guitarist/other co-frontman Tom DeLonge co-founded To The Stars, a company dedicated to multimedia investigation and promotion of ufology, for which he has directed... Read More

If you think any high-performance audio company has designed, manufactured and marketed a “straight wire with gain” preamplifier, I’ve got a bridge rectifier in Brooklyn to sell you. All I’ve heard sound different from one another, some less “colored” and more transparent and neutral sounding than others, some quieter and more dynamic than others, but all impart on the output a sonic character of one kind or another—and I’m all for that. Everything “sounds” so... Read More