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Chad Kassem knows what it takes to make an immortal blues record. "Somebody who lived down in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, the South. They lived through it. Their story is real, and their voice is real."

The founder/owner of Analogue Productions and longtime blues true believer, Kassem's record label, mail-order warehouse, and vinyl plating and pressing plant—all headquartered in Salina, Kansas—were recently profiled in The New York Times ("The Wizard of Vinyl is in Kansas," March 5, 2025). Among his many business ventures, Kassem is part of the new Craft Recordings vinyl-reissue series of titles drawn from the Bluesville catalog, which is owned by Craft's parent company, Concord Records.

Focal has just announced the Diva Mezza Utopia, a larger and more powerful sibling to the Diva Utopia active wireless speaker system it debuted last year. The new addition maintains the Diva Utopia form factor and aesthetic while upping the size of the four woofers from 6.5" to 8" and power from 400W to 500W per speaker. The result is a speaker system Focal states will "effortlessly fill" rooms up to 1076 sq ft. in size with sound.

The large Balboa II room at T.H.E. Show in SoCal demo'd a system designed around a pair of Clarisys Audio Studio Plus speakers ($69,000/pair) driven by two pairs of WestminsterLab Rei monoblock class-A amplifiers ($37,900/pair) run in bridged mode, ahead of which was a WestminsterLab Quest balanced preamplifier ($27,900).

Just when I thought my equipment reviewing schedule was locked in for many months, an unavoidable last-minute cancellation sent me scrambling for an alternative.

Jim Austin to the rescue. To his query, "How would you like to review a tube preamp from Canor, of Slovakia?" I answered with an enthusiastic "yes!"

In addition to the exciting prospect of reviewing the first tubed preamplifier to come my way in a long time, hearing the Canor Hyperion P1 preamplifier ($12,500) in my system would enable me to get a handle on the sound of gear I'd only encountered once, at High End Munich 2024. As is often the case at shows, I left without a clear sense of the preamp's contribution to the system's sound, let alone its ultimate potential.

Does anyone use the term "record man" these days? In an earlier era, it would have been used in the same way the term "ad man" was used, as a particularly American job description. People who spend their careers in and around the music business. Some of these record men are known by the public—some of it anyway—whereas others may be familiar only to colleagues.

I met Steve Berkowitz under the best of circumstances: sitting in a basement listening room hearing beautiful recordings made in 1958 that I'd never heard before, by the Miles Davis Quintet. It was the recently issued Miles Davis—Birth of the Blue (Analogue Productions APJ 172). The album was, the credits state, "Supervised by Steve Berkowitz." The name rang a bell, though prior to this meeting, I didn't have a face to go with the name.

Launched in 1967, Quad's highly original, elegantly styled 33 preamplifier and 303 power amplifier were Quad's first all–solid state designs and among the first solid state separates. The 303 may have been one of the first "vertical" amplifiers. Together with the 405 stereo amplifier, which came out in 1975, and the FM2 and FM3 tuners, these products proved to be enduring, widely feted successes from their launch until they were discontinued, the 33 in 1982, the 303 in 1985. Meanwhile, they enjoyed massive production runs, were marketed worldwide, and were much admired for their modern industrial design. It's said that Quad sold 120,000 33 preamps and 100,000 303 amplifiers. Across two versions, the 405 sold even more.

Quad introduced new versions of the 33 and 303 (each component $1599) in 2024, apparently moved to do so by the continuing hot market for originals.

Vinyl is more than sound—it’s a visual ritual. That’s where the Petru Visualizer steps in. Handcrafted with precision and built to react to your music, this unique piece of audio art transforms every spin into a show.