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2 months ago | 
audiophilia.com | Anthony Kershaw
I receive between ten to fifteen emails a week from excited PR folks telling me about their latest boutique CD release of a star performer playing all matter of repertoire. Some of it is really “out there”. As the major record companies recede into relative classical obscurity, the recorded legacy of many gifted young players examining varied repertoire continues to grow. Hope. The email introducing American Sketches seemed intriguing—interesting, unusual repertoire played by a young violinist.
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2 months ago | 
audiophilia.com | Anthony Kershaw
Well, here it is. It's the UHQR remaster from Analogue Productions that Steely Dan fans have been waiting for but worried about. The worry? The original 1975 ABC Records recording, encoded with dbx, has never had the reputation of the band’s other great recordings like Aja and Gaucho.
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Jan 24, 2025 | 
audiophilia.com | Anthony Kershaw
Vivaldi in London is the 2024 follow-up recording to Chasing The Dragon’s 2018 release, Vivaldi in Venice. Venice was a standard live recording, but London gets special treatment, Direct to Disc.
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Nov 6, 2024 | 
audiophilia.com | Anthony Kershaw
This 2024 45 RPM double album from Analogue Productions was gifted to me by Jack Graham of Straight Talk with Jack Graham. He was very impressed with this new pressing of Ray Brown’s great 1984 album and wanted me to hear it and review it for Audiophilia. I’ll try to do justice to your generous gift, Jack. The original recording on Concord Jazz is from 1984. Brown enlisted Gene Harris on piano and Gerryck King on drums to fill out a trio.
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Nov 1, 2024 | 
audiophilia.com | Anthony Kershaw
Expectations were high. On the way to the island was a fairly new analog component—the Analog Relax EX1000 MC Phono Cartridge—a heavy hitter by price and reputation. The EX1000 is a handmade wood-body cartridge from Japan, priced at an eye-watering USD 17,750. Analog Relax is a Japanese artisanal company manufacturing a line of moving coil cartridges and analog accessories. The company was founded by Yasushi Yurugi in 2016. It is manufactured under the auspices of Zoot Communications.
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Oct 21, 2024 | 
audiophilia.com | Anthony Kershaw
Maurizio Pollini (1942-2024)The great Pollini’s famous DG recording of Chopin’s Preludes, Op. 28 (recorded in Munich’s Herkulessaal in 1972 and released in 1975), has been remastered (AAA) for LP by the Emil Berliner Studios for DG’s now celebrated Original Source vinyl series and was released a few weeks ago. Optimal printed 3400 copies. I received mine next-day delivery from Amazon.ca (CAD 66)—it was flat and silent.
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Sep 4, 2024 | 
audiophilia.com | Anthony Kershaw
Release date is September 13, 2024. Catalogue number: SIGCD872Barcode: 635212087220Signum ClassicsBeethovencame to the string quartet format quite late. Much like the first of his symphonies, piano concertos and piano sonatas, the first quartets were sketched when he was 25. He was well aware of the qualities his acquaintance Mozart and his teacher Joseph Haydn brought to the string quartet form. He wanted his first works to be in their exalted company.
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Aug 31, 2024 | 
audiophilia.com | Anthony Kershaw
I believe the debut of a high-end audio manufacturer’s benchmark product is usually a reason for celebration. A turntable is doubly so, especially from a leading manufacturer like Vancouver’s Pure Fidelity Turntables. Owner/designer John Stratton asked me to judge his prototype turntable some years back. It was an excellent debut turntable, full of sonic goodness, great looks and exceptional value.
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Aug 24, 2024 | 
audiophilia.com | Anthony Kershaw
Whither Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896)? For many years the country bumpkin symphonic cousin to the more glamorous Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). They shared the same romantic sentiment and much of the same Wagnerian harmonic language, but the four square and organ-like orchestration of Bruckner never seemed to be as popular as the large, dramatic canvasses of his Austrian compatriot.
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Aug 14, 2024 | 
audiophilia.com | Anthony Kershaw
After many reprints of both vinyl and CD (and streaming) and three very high-quality, all-analogue vinyl reissues, we arrive at the pinnacle of analogue, original tape vinyl reissues for what many consider the greatest jazz album of all time, Waltz for Debby with the Bill Evans Trio (usually number one or two vying with Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue for top spot).
