Record Buying Tips

Sort By:  Post Date TitlePublish Date
Michael Fremer  |  May 08, 2019  |  17 comments
This has been an incredible week of traveling around Europe visiting audio and vinyl manufacturers and losing my luggage twice.

Michael Fremer  |  Apr 03, 2019  |  82 comments
Here's 100 recommended all-analog LP reissues worth owning. The video runs two hours so unless you are masochistic, you might want to watch in shorter segments but covering 100 LPs took time! Plus there are the usual fun stories interspersed throughout. Okay, I got wrong the The Who's "Tommy"'s original issue date (I said November '68, was May '69) otherwise all of the information should be correct. Yes, too many superlatives, but that’s video!

Michael Fremer  |  Jul 17, 2018  |  3 comments
ECM recently sent an email blast containing a link to the label's vinyl catalogue, which you can "thumb" through to see all that's available.

Michael Fremer  |  Mar 10, 2018  |  1 comments
Power has been restored. Thanks to all for your "warm" thoughts under the previous story. A reader and Oxfam volunteer in the UK sent a link to the Oxfam Online Shop's vinyl store. To access the vinyl store click on the "Entertainment" header.

Michael Fremer  |  Mar 21, 2017  |  45 comments
You can find a great deal of information online about matrix codes and their meaning. Unfortunately some of it is incorrect.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 22, 2015  |  51 comments
After reading analogplanet's Bruce Springsteen box set coverage a well-known audio designer excitedly came up to me at last December's L.A. and Orange County Audiophile Society Gala.

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 15, 2015  |  30 comments
CES coverage will continue, but first this: the daughter of a west coast record producer who had amassed a large vinyl collection she'd inherited and wished to sell contacted me last year asking how best to do it.

Michael Fremer  |  Sep 19, 2014  |  8 comments
I first visited this store in 1986 when LPs were "going away". Now they are back but Platter World is closing. The owner passed away, his daughter is running it and liquidating. All single LPs are $3.00. Most of what I saw was the usual usual and not in particularly great condition but there are always gems to be had in such an enormous stash of records and if you're looking to try some new music $3.00 will get it for you in whatever condition.

Michael Fremer  |  Apr 13, 2014  |  24 comments
The Princeton Record Exchange isn't what it used to be but it's still better than it once was. Of course "back in the day" the store was records and nothing but records. Then came CDs and DVDs and the emphasis shifted. After all, it's in a college town.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 25, 2014  |  8 comments
You say you don't want to spend hundreds on an original LSC-1806 "Living Stereo" or LSC-1817 or $1500 on the Soria box set LDS-6065? That's understandable. By the numbers: LSC-1806 is the 1954 stereo spectacular "Also Sprach Zarathustra" with Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony. Of course RCA couldn't issue it on vinyl in 1954, though it did issue it in stereo on reel to reel tape well before the vinyl, which didn't get released until 1960.

Michael Fremer  |  Sep 18, 2013  |  6 comments
An email arrived in my inbox a few days ago from Bob Ludwig who had heard from a friend about a 6000 classical LP collection that had recently arrived at Melanie Nelson's Little Red Book Shack in the small Columbia County, New York town of Livingston. How it got there is less important than that it was there.

Michael Fremer  |  Jul 23, 2013  |  25 comments
Do you own a copy of Buckingham Nicks? It was Stevi Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham's pre-Fleetwood Mac pairing featuring an icky cover both probably regret. Issued on Polydor in 1973 it's credits show that the duo and producer/engineer Keith Olsen knew what they were doing!

Michael Fremer  |  Mar 07, 2013  |  10 comments
Last Record Store Day Sony/Legacy released four mono LPs: Miles Davis's Miles Ahead and Porgy and Bess, The Fabulous Johnny Cash (released by IMPEX last year in stereo) and Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and The Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin.
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 04, 2013  |  27 comments
A reader alerted me to the fact that some online sites are selling a variety of "Pink Moon" reissues including one from the aptly named "Phantom" label. Be careful!
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 02, 2013  |  14 comments
It's time to put to bed a long standing record myth: that UK Decca and UK-pressed London records are different pressings, even if they have the same matrix numbers, mother numbers and stamper numbers. This myth has persisted for a very long time, fed by people who claim to hear differences between such records even when the information in the lead-out groove area is identical.

Pages

X