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FLASH! Record Business Conquers Death! Musicians Live Forever! There is life after death in the world of recorded music. Elvis left the building 46 years ago. Jimi Hendrix has been absent for 53 years. Yet both continue to release albums of unreleased material. Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Bruce Springsteen wisely recorded much of their music throughout their careers, live and in the studio; they'll continue to release "new" music long after they pass.

Keeping fans satisfied but also looking forward is an effective marketing tool, one that Ernst Mikael Jørgensen, the guru of all things Elvis, has mastered. His latest project is the six-CD box set Elvis On Tour, which is connected to the 50th anniversary of Presley's 1972 US tour and the rerelease of the MGM documentary/concert film of the same name, a Blu-ray of which is also included.

When Art Dudley reviewed the original PS Audio PerfectWave DirectStream D/A processor in Stereophile's September 2014 issue, he very much liked what he heard. "For those who've waited for a computer-friendly DAC that offers, with every type of music file, the best musicality of which DSD is capable, the PerfectWave DirectStream may be in a class by itself," he concluded. It was computer-friendly because, with an add-in card, you could connect it with USB or to an Ethernet cable and use it with, for example, Roon or JRiver.

PS Audio discontinued the original DirectStream DAC in 2022, introducing its replacement, the DirectStream MK2, priced at $7999, in January 2023. At 17" × 4" × 14", the MK2 is the same size as its predecessor, and with its gloss-black MDF top panel, it looks very similar.

Founded in 1978, VPI Industries appears to be one of the most successful turntable manufacturers in the world—certainly in the US. The New Jersey–based company sells turntables, tonearms, cartridges, record clamps, plinths, record cleaning machines, and a phono preamp. But that's not all. The company offers VPI-branded pillows, candles, mugs, stickers, T-shirts, and a tell-all company history, 40 Years on the Record.

And talk about turntables! From the entry-level $1499 Cliffwood to the top-of-the-line $104,000 Vanquish (found under the website's "VPI Luxury" page, accompanied by the adage, "Settle for Nothing but Extravagant"), VPI is clearly and rightfully proud of its analog achievements.

Blue Note's Tone Poet audiophile vinyl reissue series, which has been written about frequently in these pages, was inaugurated in 2019 and has now reached 70+ releases, mostly reissues from the storied label's catalog with outliers from Pacific Jazz/World Pacific and United Artists and a couple of new issues thrown in. The Blue Note reissues have ranged from classics released in myriad editions since their initial LP run to music held back for years and sometimes put out only in Japan or only recently discovered and released on compact disc.

1972 is widely praised as the most fertile year ever for rock albums, notching such classics as The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street, David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and Neil Young's Harvest. But albums released in 1973 and currently celebrating their 50th anniversary may be even better: Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, ZZ Top's Tres Hombres, and Bruce Springsteen's The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, among others. But of all the enduring albums of '73, the most exotic, audacious, and ultimately entertaining must be Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies.

It had been far too long since I'd experienced a Peter McGrath demo, let alone one in which the master recording engineer and Wilson Audio Brand Ambassador had a full hour to share his recordings. At last, on Sunday at 2pm at Munich High End 2023, Peter followed Abby Fon of Impex Records' packed presentation on Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, Paco DeLucia: Saturday Night in San Francisco 12 • 6 • 80 to spend an hour in the Nagra room playing a generous helping of some of the favorite tracks that he's recorded over the years.

In the extremely large, all-sonic-bets-are-off, glass-enclosed Atrium display mounted by Mansour Mamaghani's Audio Reference Munich, Dan D'Agostino, and his indispensable sidekick (aka company President) Bill McKiegan, joined forces with Wilson, dCS, and Perlisten to blow people's minds. When the new Relentless Epic and Relentless 800 mono amplifiers got fired up, it was a case of which dazzled you first, the sound or the sheer enormity and shine of the display.