For nearly three decades, Steve Stanley has been one of the quiet architects behind how we remember mid-century American pop. His work as a reissue producer and archivist has revived artists who slipped through the cracks of the industry machine, restoring not only their music but the cultural scaffolding around it. From Del-Fi to Rev-Ola to his own Now Sounds imprint, Stanley has built a body of work that treats forgotten pop not as nostalgia but as evidence: proof that the margins of the 1960s were sometimes more interesting than its center.

What distinguishes Stanley isn’t just the scholarship. It's intuition. He has an ear for artists who nearly made it, who should have made it, who made something exquisite - but briefly - and he approaches their histories with a precision that resists mythmaking even as it acknowledges the romance of lost possibilities. His design work reinforces that impulse. The packaging, sequencing, and annotation in his projects aren’t ornamental; they’re part of the narrative engine, a way of giving listeners the context they never got the first time around.

With the new vinyl reissue of Eternity’s Children on High Moon Records, Stanley returns to one of the great unsolved stories of sunshine pop. These albums have lived half their lives in rumor and scarcity, admired by collectors but underexamined by the larger world. Stanley’s work on this project gives the band’s complicated and fascinating legacy its first real chance to be understood on its own terms. Our conversation begins there, in the space between what history remembers and what it forgot to write down.

It’s a remarkable moment to be a record collector. Music lovers have never had more ways to hear their favorite albums in whatever format feels right: hi-res files, streaming on the move, the whole buffet. And yet, there’s a meaningful difference between a solid pressing and a pressing built to be the definitive document of an album. Audiophile labels have chased that ideal for decades: each working to deliver versions that honor the intent and the sound.

Plenty of listeners have caught on. If spending a little more means skipping the long hunt through used bins and getting a pristine, purpose-built edition, the choice starts to feel pretty rational.

That’s where the Definitive Sound Series steps in. Interscope Records aims to create what they consider the best possible versions of key albums from their catalog. Numbered, limited editions. Gatefold tip-on jackets. A dedicated DSS slipcase. And a “one-step” process that moves straight from lacquer to stamper for maximal clarity.

Their latest release is shepherded by Tom “Grover” Biery, who produced the new edition of Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song. You’ve lived with these recordings for years, but Grover’s betting this edition will shift what you think you know. It includes two tracks not on the original album - “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” - and was assembled from three separate three-track analog tapes.

Grover’s path through the music industry has been long and impactful. He helped cultivate careers for Metallica, The Flaming Lips, The Black Keys, and others. He led operations as General Manager of Warner Bros. Records and later served as Executive Vice President of BMG’s Recorded Music US division. On top of all that, he co-founded Slow Down Sounds, a vinyl-only reissue label dedicated to thoughtfully curated releases. Their recent project brings newly issued Chet Baker recordings from Bruce Weber’s Let’s Get Lost documentary, mastered by Levi Seitz at Black Belt Mastering from fresh 48/24 transfers and pressed on 180-gram Neotech vinyl by RTI.

So dig into Nat King Cole, revisit Chet Baker, and explore how Grover tests the upper limits of how good a record can truly sound.

There are people who make great sound feel less like a secret society and more like an open door. Bob Hazelwood is one of them. He is the Director of Engineering and Product Development at Andover Audio, and his career runs through many major players in the industry. He grew up in South Jersey, built his first amplifier at fifteen, and has been chasing better sound ever since. He loves working with his hands, he loves creating things that actually make life feel richer, and he has a deep belief that music shouldn’t require a technical translation guide.

That outlook is woven into Andover’s mission. The company was built on the idea that audiophile quality should not feel intimidating. Good sound can get technical fast, but most listeners simply want music in their homes that feels natural, full, and easy to live with. Andover approaches that goal by pairing thoughtful engineering with designs that stay out of your way. Their IsoGroove technology is a perfect example. It keeps a turntable steady even when it sits directly on its own speaker, a simple but transformative insight that shapes the Andover-One, the SpinBase, and the rest of the company’s approachable hi-fi line.

Their newest chapter is SpinPlay, announced only recently. It takes the philosophy behind the Andover-One and brings it to an even more accessible place. A semi-automatic turntable. A preinstalled cartridge. A factory-set counterweight. A wide, room-filling sound field powered by independent amplification. It is a system that drops easily into the flow of a home and delivers a genuine audiophile experience without the hassle or the learning curve. For many listeners, it may be the first and last record player they need.

Bob is central to all of this. He understands the engineering, but he also understands the psychology of listening: that moment when music fills a room and reminds you why you wanted better sound in the first place. He is passionate about his family, about fixing bad audio where he finds it, about slot car racing and motorcycles and Frank Zappa, and about building products that make it simple for people to love music more deeply.

So please welcome Bob Hazelwood of Andover Audio, a company proving that great sound can feel like an invitation rather than an initiation.