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You are here: Home / Archives for Editorial / Letters / Editorials

There Is No “Magic Bullet” in Hi-Fi

May 6, 2022 by Bill Hart Leave a Comment

There Is No “Magic Bullet” in Hi-Fi No Magic Solutions I’ve spent some time on the audio chat fora over the years. Many popular threads these days are devoted to cheap improvements that can be made using audiophile “tweaks” or repurposed non-audiophile products. These can be applied to isolate gear, enhance the signals or connections or otherwise address some perceived problem that, once solved, offers to raise the level of music reproduction. It’s like a cheap solution to upgrade your system: from audiophile fuses, special wires (beyond simply having a high-quality... Read More

Filed Under: Editorials, In Brief

Change is Good- From Proto-Metal to Spiritual Jazz

September 30, 2019 by Bill Hart Leave a Comment

Change is Good- From Proto-Metal to Spiritual Jazz Spiritual jazz is something I started to focus on in just the last couple years. More recently, I’ve been writing pieces about obscure private or small label offbeat jazz- the material fits under various genre headings, including soul jazz, free jazz and other categories that aren’t always fully descriptive of the music.  This isn’t as much an editorial choice as it is a reflection of my recent listening interests: the level of musicianship is high, and the production quality is often good, in part because the performances... Read More

Filed Under: Editorials, In Brief

Editor’s Note: Turntable Set Up Issues and a Forum?

April 18, 2019 by Bill Hart Leave a Comment

Editor’s Note:  Turntable Set Up Issues and a Forum? Turntable Set-Up Issues With the arrival of a new tonearm and tone arm pod, I’ve been juggling two tone arms, with the added mass of the arm support pods (each of which weighs about 30 lbs). Balancing this weight on the Minus K isolation platform is a little tricky. One basic step is optimizing arm position for ease of use and pivot to spindle distance. Other, more routine set up steps—alignment, null points, and anti-skate are par for the course. However, the lateral tracker doesn’t involve null points or anti-skate... Read More

Filed Under: Editorials, In Brief

Fixing Certain Features on the Site

August 8, 2018 by Bill Hart Leave a Comment

Fixing Certain Features on the Site UPDATE: August, 2018  IF YOU ARE REGISTERING TO GET UPDATES AND/OR TO COMMENT AND DO NOT RECEIVE AN EMAIL FROM WORDPRESS TO VALIDATE YOUR REGISTRATION, PLEASE CHECK YOUR SPAM/JUNK MAIL. BREAKING NEWS: As of Friday, August 10, 2018, it looks like all functionality to the site, including Letter to the Editor and Comments, is fully operational. My thanks to Tom Ossa and his team. BH.   As this site has grown, I have tried to improve it, and add certain features. Alas, some of them don’t perform as intended and need to be reprogrammed. Some of... Read More

Filed Under: Editorials

Taking a Wider View On Your Listening Choices

March 12, 2018 by Bill Hart Leave a Comment

Taking a Wider View On Your Listening Choices If you take music seriously (and I’m not talking about pinky lifting pretension here)- you can take garage bands or punk as seriously as original Blue Notes, you know your taste. It is seldom dictated by the mainstream trends, marketing, or popular culture of the moment. Sometimes, popular music isn’t just fluff either and can prove enduring as well, see, e.g. “The Letter”. Chances are, you had some epiphany at some point- probably as a teenager—and recognized that there were certain things you liked, in preference to the music that... Read More

Filed Under: Editorials, In Brief

Sonics vs. Music on LPs

August 26, 2017 by Bill Hart Leave a Comment

Sonics vs. Music on LPs     With apologies for the “click bait” title, I had an epiphany the other day playing the main system for a visitor. I usually try to find music that is both interesting and well recorded. There is no shortage of such records, but as I find myself plunging deeper down the rabbit hole of obscurities, lost bands and forgotten albums, I realized how much of a gap there in sound quality between some of these musical gems and the spectacular sound you get on the great audiophile quality records. Ideally, you’d get both— interesting music and lifelike... Read More

Filed Under: Editorials, In Brief

Opening the Door to Comments!

December 1, 2016 by Bill Hart 2 Comments

Opening the Door to Comments!   When this site launched, it did not include any facility for user comments. I didn’t want to bother moderating comments, and had enough work just assembling content. But now, almost two years into publishing TheVinylPress, I’m willing to experiment a bit, so some articles will now include a comments feature. If you want to post a comment, you will have to register. (Registration and login links are at the bottom of the page in the “black bar”).  Initial comments may be put into a queue until you are validated as a user. And, at least... Read More

Filed Under: Editorials, In Brief

From the Editor- Ian Anderson Interview

February 4, 2016 by Bill Hart

  I’m thrilled to publish an interview with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull on TheVinylPress. Anderson is a deeply reflective, articulate man who was willing to share some of his thoughts on his extraordinary style of music-making- particularly the early, seminal albums during a period of dramatic change in popular music– a transformation in which Anderson played a vital role. Anderson gives us a first hand perspective on this watershed period that reshaped popular music forever. We owe a debt of gratitude to this gifted and deservedly legendary composer and artist.  Here is the... Read More

Filed Under: Editorials

Canned Heat: In Depth

September 28, 2015 by Bill Hart

  I’m very pleased to publish three interrelated articles about Canned Heat, a blues band with a roster of incredible talent, and deep and significant roots in the rediscovery of the blues in the early ‘60s: a band that played the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock and is still “on the road” after 50 years. So much of what the band did in the late ‘60s is now taken for granted: driving rock boogie, the mix of country or rural blues with rock, a serious effort to preserve the elements of long forgotten blues motifs (including many eclectic and more obscure blues styles that were... Read More

Filed Under: Editorials, In Brief

LISTENING TO RECORDED MUSIC: A RUMINATION

June 7, 2015 by Bill Hart

The Internet has democratized many things, including the ready availability of music and information about it. It has also changed how we listen to music: from hardware to software to new formats and delivery platforms. Despite my preference for things analog, I support these changes if only because they give artists (performers and songwriters) the ability to reach more audiences and hopefully, in the process, to make some return on their work.   One of the chief complaints about mass-market music delivery is that as technology has improved, sound quality (and consumer’s... Read More

Filed Under: Editorials, Features

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In Brief:

Incoming- Mrs. Henry Keep on Rising

Mrs. Henry Keep on Rising   A 21st century rock opera? Recorded to tape? And mastered at Bernie Grundman’s shop? I’ve started to explore this box (3 LPs, 2 CDs and a substantial book) in more depth and plan on interviewing the producer in an upcoming piece. … [Read More...]

Power to the People-Back Up Generator

    Shortly after the Texas "big freeze" in February 2021, I contacted various vendors of back up generators. Some did not bother to respond, a few came out, ostensibly to give me a quote and I never heard from them again. One vendor did send me a blank form with a very high total price, without completing the cost analysis for running gas lines, electrical wiring and the other things that are "adds" to the cost of the generator itself.  I kicked this around for a while-- given the heat in Central Texas during the summer--110F for days on end, we got constant warnings last summer (2023) to reduce power consumption, lest we suffer rolling blackouts. And then there's the fact that Austin really isn't "built" for freezing temperatures. Black ice with no road crews, downed power lines, and demand that teeters off the edge of power failure catastrophe. I do not want to go into the power grid … [Read More...]

Incoming-Know what I mean?

Cannonball Adderley's "Know what I mean? is a warhorse, to be sure,but one that deserves its reputation. I was prompted to explore a few different pressings as a result of a thread on the Hoffman forum: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/do-you-have-cannonball-adderley-bill-evans-know-what-i-mean-the-best-sounding-vintage-jazz-lp.1175660/  I used to shop these OJCs as bargains back in the day when Tower Records was thriving. They were a solid entry point into some very good sounding jazz--some of it "straight ahead" but well made, taken from analog masters for the most part and did I say cheap? Back in the day, these were bargain records when they were released, and until the more recent surge in prices of older LPs, could be readily found for little money.  The recent Craft reissue cut by Kevin Gray has brought renewed attention to the record. I thought it might be fun to do a … [Read More...]

We’re Back!

We’re Back! Some fresh content for your consideration. Neil Antin did some modest updates to his seminal book on Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records. Neil did not regard these changes as a “new version” so the download is now 3.1 with a “Record of Changes” at the end. I’ve talked to Peter Ulrich, the drummer from Dead Can Dance a few times over the years because I was fascinated by the group. They hit it big in audiophile circles with “Into the Labyrinth” which became a “demo” record with the MoFi release. I got that, but also sought out an original 4AD pressing, and as I delved into their music, bought more original copies- they were not crazy expensive at the time. When Peter told me he was doing a book on the history of his involvement with the band, I was eager to read it. It offers some great insight into a period when this band was inventing new sounds in the post-punk … [Read More...]

Drumming with Dead Can Dance: and Parallel Adventures- Peter Ulrich

  Drumming with Dead Can Dance: and Parallel Adventures Peter Ulrich   I didn’t really get on to Dead Can Dance until “Into the Labyrinth,” their most popular LP that made the audiophile rounds here in the States. 4AD, their label, wasn’t well distributed in the US when the band was first developing, it wasn’t exactly mainstream stuff here, even in the audiophile community. Yet the band had a following, starting in Australia, where Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry had a band and moved to a council flat in London where the two met our narrator, a soon to be jobless publicist for a theatrical/live show venue. Ulrich had the time, interest, musical background, and chops as a drummer to become part of their band. So we get the story of DCD from the outset of their adventures in England, playing local venues and developing a following. The scene was a sort of post-punk, … [Read More...]

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