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The Electric Recording Company Produces Classical Music Reissues The Right Way
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 20, 2013  |  7 comments
Here's a company that fell well below my radar screen for years until a reader alerted me to its website. The Electric Recording Company and its founder Pete Hutchison is dedicated to reissuing on vinyl much sought after classical music fare from the early LP era, including those of legendary violinist Johanna Martzy as well as recordings by violinists, Leonid Kogan and Gioconda De Vito, ‘French School’ pianists Yvonne Lefébure and Germaine Thyssens-Valentin and cellist János Starker.. Or as the website describes the musical choices "...iconic 'Holy Grail' recordings by the most revered classical performers."
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First 27 Analog Corners Served Up on Analog Planet
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 22, 2013  |  1 comments
The first 27 of the hundreds of Analog Corners written for Stereophile have now been published on this site with many new accompanying photos courtesy of Ariel Bitran, Stereophile's hard working editorial assistant.
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Fine Dining and a Side of Vienna Philharmonic String Quartet Monday March 4th. New Yorkers Take Notice!
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 27, 2013  |  3 comments
We often talk about "cross-pollination" opportunities in the high performance audio world, like putting a cool system in a high-end furniture store or at trade-shows not associated with audio. It's a good way to interest a different demographic to the hobby.

I was just alerted to this event by a friend who is the oleologist (olive oil specialist) at New York's Eataly, the world's largest artisanal Italian food and wine marketplace, organized along similar lines, at Del Posto, one of New York's premier Italian restaurants—the first Italian restaurant in forty years to receive a four star review from The New York Times (in 2010).

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Pressing Issue With U.S. Edition of The Bryan Ferry Orchestra's "The Jazz Age" (Updated 3/14/13)
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 12, 2013  |  2 comments
Whether or not you appreciate the mono "old 78rpm" sound of Bryan Ferry's re-imagining of songs from his catalog as "jazz age" singles (I do so far), I came upon a serious pressing problem on side two track three that I brought up to Bob Ludwig, who gets mastering credit because I honestly wasn't sure if it was part of the " retro-plan" or a genuine pressing problem. In part that's because there's absolutely nothing visible to indicate a problem.
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I Messed Up! I was on "For What It's Worth" Last Night...Not Next Week (online link to show in comments)
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 15, 2013  |  16 comments
Oh well. My segment on Gary Dell'Abbate's and Jon Hein's VH-1 Classic TV show "For What It's Worth" aired last night. I thought it was next Thursday evening.
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Howard Stern Crapped All Over Me Today. I'm Still Smiling
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 18, 2013  |  41 comments
Howard Stern crapped all over me today on his radio show. The opening salvo came just after he admitted that he really doesn't listen to music anymore, couldn't care less and couldn't bring himself to play David Bowie's new album.
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Classical Pianist and YouTube Phenom To Issue New Liszt Recording in Digital and Pure Analog
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 19, 2013  |  8 comments
The Ukranian pianist Valentina Lisitsa, who has more than 30 million YouTube channel views (and you thought classical music was 'dead'?) and is currently signed to Decca Records, will soon issue a collection of Liszt pieces recorded two different ways: digitally and all-analog with no edits, recorded from the same set of microphones.
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Rhino Announces Record Store Day Limited Edition Releases (Revised With New Information)
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 21, 2013  |  19 comments
Record Store Day is April 20th and Rhino will be ready with its biggest limited edition release yet. Included are The Band's 3 LP set The Last Waltz, a limited to 5000 copies $49.98 edition and the rare mono edition of Van Dyke Parks' epic Song Cycle that mostly went to radio stations for some odd reason
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Sony/Legacy Announces Record Store Day Vinyl Bounty
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 22, 2013  |  9 comments
Legacy announced a full slate of vinyl for this April 20th's Record Store Day. Titles include newly mastered from the original tapes 180 gram versions of Aerosmith, Get Your Wings and Toys In the Attic, a double 180 gram of Cypress Hill's Black Sunday and three Miles Davis monos: Round About Midnight, Milestones and Someday My Prince Will Come.
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VPI Debuts New "3D Printer" One Piece JMW Memorial Tonearm and New Direct Drive Turntable Motor
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 25, 2013  |  11 comments
VPI's Harry Weisfeld demonstrated a new one piece "3D printer" version of the long-running JMW Memorial Tonearm last Saturday, March 23rd at an open house attended by member of The New York Audio Society.
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Omnivore's Record Store Day Vinyl Collectibles Include Big Star Documentary Soundtrack Album
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 29, 2013  |  0 comments
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Omnivore Recordings will release limited-pressing vinyl collectibles that are musts: The soundtrack to the long-awaited feature-length Big Star film documentary "Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me" will be available in a special, limited edition (4,000 worldwide) 180-gram, two-LP translucent yellow vinyl pressing ahead of its standard release configurations
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Phil Ramone, One of the Record Producing and Engineering Greats, Dead at 79
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 30, 2013  |  5 comments
Legendary record producer and engineer Phil Ramone passed away today at age 72.
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Marantz Launches NA-11S1 Reference Class Network Audio Player and USB DAC
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 31, 2013  |  2 comments
What's a story like this doing in an analog space? While it's a news item covering a new digital product, I was honored to be the only American audio writer invited to the launch so while the piece will be published in Stereophile, I decided to post it here as well. I hope you find at least the history of Marantz interesting, but also the concept of downloading DSD files from the Internet and playing them back from a computer. In any case, I think of music services like Spotify and Pandora the "Evatone sheets" of our digital era. You can use them to audition new music before dropping your hard earned cash on the vinyl version.—Ed.

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Fire at Pallas Pressing Plant Destroys CD/DVD Duplication Facility
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2013  |  7 comments
This is no April Fool's Day trick: a fire last night destroyed the Pallas Pressing Plant's CD/DVD duplication facility. Fortunately there were no injuries.

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Kinks and Klem Kadiddlehopper?
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 04, 2013  |  8 comments
The Dorsey Brothers, Tommy and Jimmy saw the rock'n'roll handwriting on the wall back in 1956. The big banders invited Elvis Presley onto their television show. It was Elvis's first TV appearance and it created a sensation.

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