Michael Fremer

I've been waiting for the right occasion to crack open a sealed-in-the-polyethylene-bag 1A pressing of The Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man I'd bought a few years ago from a veteran Columbia Records publicist. Today was the day. Wiz reissue producer and Sundazed Records Prez Bob Irwin has just graced me with test lacquers of that album, which he'll release soon on 180gm vinyl, along with Turn! Turn! Turn!, Notorious Byrds Brothers, and Sweetheart of the Rodeo—with others to follow (I hope).

These Irwin-produced sets were issued three years ago to great acclaim on Columbia/Legacy CD (with some cuts, like "Mr. Tambourine Man," mixed analog in stereo for the first time), with lots of great bonus tracks, photos, studio chatter, etc. The new LPs, mastered all-analog using Irwin's custom-rebuilt Ampex ATR-100 playback deck, will contain the remixes, plus one bonus track per side, fitted in without compression. The plan is to issue the LPs with gatefold jackets to allow the inclusion of never-before-seen photos from the original sessions and other cool stuff.

Update: one online LP seller claims the set will be on four LPs not two. That would be good (but probably costly), but until there's label confirmation it should not be taken as fact. After all, another vendor claimed that Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left was cut from analog. We posted that as fact and were left with an egged face. So four LPs is "what we've heard" until we find out for sure.

Leveraging its catalog of licensed title and self-produced SACDs, Acoustic Sounds has launched a high resolution digital download site that will allow customers to download their choice of DSD (Super Audio CD), FLAC files at 176/24, 88/24 or ALAC files at 88/24 bit resolution.

Sorry to have mislead you but the endgadget.com story headlined "Amazon Announces Vinyl Sales Up 745 Percent" is as best as I can determine, a fantasy created by the writer. First of all, it wasn't "Amazon" that announced anything. It was "Amazon.co.uk" the UK Amazon affiliate that made an announcement, but it was that vinyl sales were up 745 percent though it was about a huge increase in vinyl sales.