A recent bid on eBay won me mono copies of Nat King Cole's Love is the Thing and Nat King Cole Sings/George Shearing Plays. The descriptions said that the records had some "marks" but that they "shouldn't affect play." The rest of the wording led me to suspect that the seller knew nothing about vinyl, but since the winning bid was $3.15 ($5.65 with shipping), why not take a chance? I have some mono records that look unsalvageable but play fine—especially using the mono Helikon cartridge.

Imagine Van and organist Joey Francesco getting together for a late night jam session with some friends and running through a set of Van tunes plus an assortment of standards. You don't have to imagine it because that's what this album sounds like and it's close to how these sessions were produced. Van and Joey clearly had great fun making this record. Van hasn't sang this freely and playfully on record in some time.

Day one's video coverage at High End Munich 2018 finally uploaded. More than an hour's worth of edited video is embedded below. This year's show was bigger, better and more crowded than ever. As you'll see, the world's high performance audio designers and manufacturers have been busy creating exciting new and innovative audio gear, especially in the analog domain and at every price point.

Boulder introduced at High End Munich 2018 a new, compact phono preamplifier. The 508 is said to contain much of the circuitry of the company's 1008 phono preamp while retaining an even larger percentage of the 1008's sonic performance.