LATEST ADDITIONS

Vinyl Icons
Joe Cocker Mad Dogs & Englishmen
Johnny Black  |  Dec 01, 2018
When the singer agreed to make a live album he was obligated to tour, only to find the project dominated by American songwriter/producer Leon Russell as it was decided to film the events. Could a rock 'n' roll circus of excess be turned into commercial success?

Joe Cocker's legendary 1970 Mad Dogs & Englishmen double live album is not, let me make it absolutely clear, your regular run-of-the-mill, superbly recorded and immaculately produced Vinyl Icon. This is an artefact which has achieved Vinyl Icon status despite the ramshackle method by which it was recorded, and despite the chaos and drug-addled confusion of the 1970 tour for which it is named.

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Meet the Producers
Jeff Lynne
Steve Sutherland  |  Dec 01, 2018
His clients have included the cream of rock royalty, so how come this British-born producer is one of the most divisive around? Steve Sutherland on the man who successfully collaborated with the band whose shadow, some say, he never escaped

It was a job you wouldn't wish on anyone, even your worst enemy. A deadly odds-on no-win nightmare. And Jeff Lynne had just been handed the gig.

'Every morning I would wake up with half dread, half exhilaration,' he remembered later. 'The idea of doing it was the most thrilling thing imaginable… but messing it up would be horrible.' The terrible task in hand? To reanimate The Beatles!

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From the Vault
British pre-conceptions (August 1985)
Ken Kessler  |  Dec 01, 2018  |  First Published: Aug 01, 1985
Ken Kessler investigates control units from Musical Fidelity and Deltec

By 1985 standards, preamps selling for between £500 and £1000 are thought of as 'upper mid-fi' and not really expected to match the standards of the Krell PAM-3/Audio Research SP-10 variety. But they should bring you close enough to the state-of-the-art that you have to think long and hard about justifying an expenditure of double their prices – or even more. Aah, diminishing returns...

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Opinion
Opinion: Trouble in store?
Steve Harris  |  Dec 01, 2018
We have a hundred more record shops than we did in 2009, thanks to the efforts of those who run the stores and events like Record Store Day. But don’t celebrate just yet, warns Steve Harris
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Opinion
Opinion: Let the past be the past
Barry Willis  |  Dec 01, 2018
An electric shock from an antique valve amp finally sends the rose-tinted glasses flying from the face of Barry Willis. Vintage gear? You can keep it, because the golden age of audio is happening now...
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Investigation
Valves: ready to roll?
Steve Harris  |  Dec 01, 2018  |  First Published: Feb 12, 2019
Thinking about tweaking your valve amp by swapping out the tubes? Steve Harris has the inside track on the payoffs and pitfalls of tube rolling…
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Pre/Power AmplifiersVintage
Myst TMA3 amplifier
Review: David Price,  |  Nov 01, 2018
hfnvintage.pngBack in the '80s, several British 'cottage industry' companies made integrated amps for purist customers, but this is surely the most 'mysterious'. How will it sound today?

In hi-fi as in life, the 1980s was a transformative time. From speaker stands and audiophile speaker cable, to mini monitors and expensive, minimalist integrated amps – the 'go for it' decade of Filofaxes, red braces and VW Golf GTis showed us what was to come.

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Investigation
Keeping it Simple
Barry Fox  |  Nov 01, 2018
Barry Fox takes the stress out of connecting your hi-fi to the Internet

My shiny new hi-fi has all the usual knobs, buttons and meters on the front, and all the usual analogue and digital input and output sockets on the rear. But there's also what looks like an overgrown telephone socket on the back, labelled 'Ethernet'.

I'm assuming that this is for service engineers or connecting the component to a PC, which I don't want to do. I just want to continue listening to my music from high quality sources, through my trusty big box speakers, without getting into the hassle of computing.

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Classical
Classical (November 2018)
Christopher Breunig  |  Nov 01, 2018
This month we review: Schubert, Bruch, Ravel/Gershwin, and Mozart.
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Jazz
Jazz (November 2018)
Steve Harris  |  Nov 01, 2018
This month we review: Soft Machine, Bansangu Orchestra, Tony Kofi and The Organisation, and New York All-Stars.
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