LATEST ADDITIONS

Leave it to Victrola to come up with an all-in-one entry-level offering for budding, budget-minded vinyl lovers — i.e., just the kind of eager, LP-loving newbies whom we are always happy to welcome into the warm analog embrace of the audiophile fold. Earlier today at CES 2026, the company announced the Victrola Soundstage, a soundbase that is said to have been designed to deliver, quote, “high-fidelity performance for vinyl listeners from a compact, space-efficient design.” Read on to see how the Soundstage covers its fully integrated system intentions. . .

Since we ended 2025 with a review of one of the two best-selling jazz albums in history, it is only appropriate — and remarkably timely! — that we begin 2026 by reviewing a most important 180g 2LP update of the other album of such esteemed, 5x-platinum-selling lineage: Miles Davis’ August 1959 Columbia landmark, Kind of Blue. The offering of a new, definitive audiophile version of Kind of Blue from Analogue Productions — one that is based on the much-sought-after speed-corrected edition originally issued by Classic Records in 1995 — is certainly big news, so read Mark Smotroff’s review to see if this new Kind of Blue release is worthy of getting in your hands and onto your turntable ASAP. . .

In the world of high-end audio, turntable design is defined by strict minimalists, creative maximalists, and those who refuse the confines of traditional geometry altogether. The late Tom Fletcher was one such man. Fletcher’s table designs debuted in the 1970s at Nottingham Analogue, and, eventually, at his own company, Fletcher Audio — and his design wisdom is very much in evidence in the way Pear Audio Analogue constructed their all-new Captain John Handy turntable. Read Ken Micallef’s review to see if the Pear Audio Blue Captain John Handy table meets or exceeds Fletcher’s design aesthetics. . .

Welcome to Part 2 of our annual, year-end Best LPs extravaganza! As we noted at the outset of Part 1 yesterday (December 23), it’s never been easy paring down our favorite LPs to the final selections for these best-of listings, but we do feel we’ve done our measured best after sifting through the multiple hundreds of LPs we spun throughout the course of 2025 in order to represent the top-tier of what we’ve heard on vinyl this year. In the aforementioned Part 1, we — and by “we,” we mean a) Mike Mettler, our ever-faithful AP editor, and b) our chief LP reviewer, Mark Smotroff — covered our Top 10 favorite archival/reissues LPs. And now, read Part 2 to see what our Top 10 new LPs of the year are. . .