On the afternoon of September 4th, 1962 The Beatles arrived at Abbey Road for their first official session. They rehearsed, had dinner, returned to the studio and recorded “How Do You Do it” chosen for them as their first single by George Martin.

The Beatles in Mono arrived today. This evening listening will begin but this afternoon analogplanet.com editor Michael Fremer opened the box and physically inspected.

Designing a turntable (or pretty much anything) with no budgetary constraints is far easier than is designing one to a specific price point, especially a low one.

Original tape sources, including "many found only recently" of Bob Dylan's legendary "Basement Tape" sessions have been meticulously restored and will be released on November 4th by Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings in a complete 6 disc CD set (The Basement Tapes Complete:The Bootleg Series Vol. 11 and in a 2 CD/3 LP 180g highlights edition (The Basement Tapes Raw: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11.

A visit to Czech Republic-based GZ Media recently published on a website includes an un-captioned photo of a large stack of the upcoming Beatles Mono box sets. This has flooded analogplanet.com's "inbox" with emails from readers, some inquisitive, some hysterical and a few spewing expletives.

Last winter analogplanet.com editor Michael Fremer attended a Music Matters event at Denver's Listen Up! retailer. Retailers throughout the country hold these "meet and greet" events for their regular customers and to attract new ones to the store.

Today we mostly think of Tony Bennett as a jazz singer but back in 1962 Tony Bennett was one of Columbia Records' pop music stars. He had his first #1 hit for the label in 1951 with "Because of You". In 1953 Bennett's "Rags to Riches" topped the Billboard charts for 8 weeks. "Stranger In Paradise" only made it to #2 that year but you couldn't avoid it on the radio and few back then wanted to.

Experience Hendrix, LLC in conjunction with Sony/Legacy will release on September 16th these two Jimi Hendrix albums on CD, digital and 180g vinyl mastered by Bernie Grundman from the original master tapes.

September 9th's scheduled "Back to Mono" Beatles box is far from Universal Music Enterprises' only late summer vinyl venture. UMe today announced an ambitious vinyl release schedule for September and October.

First off, to clarify: I am a big Mel Tormé fan. If I describe a product as producing a "velvet fog" (Mel's nickname), it's meant as a compliment! Some readers emailed wondering how I meant the expression. I meant it as a compliment and I used it because the VK-P6's sonics reminded me of Mel's smooth, sonorous voice. If you want a phono preamp more in the Axl Rose camp, there are some. And there are some that manage neutrality or close to it.