Analogue Productions Announces The Return of Pinnacle High-Quality Vinyl With The Revered Ultra High Quality Record (UHQR™)!

A huge announcement to coincide with the to-the-day 50th Anniversary of this Legendary Title!

Hybrid SACD versions of Axis: and Are You Experienced also expected in 2018

First title: The Jimi Hendrix Experience/Axis: Bold As Love

The pinnacle of high-quality vinyl — the Ultra High Quality Record (UHQR™ ) — returns, with Axis: Bold As Love!

Analogue Productions, the audiophile in-house reissue label of Acoustic Sounds, Inc., plans to release a definitive, handmade, limited-run reissue edition of Jimi Hendrix's 1967 masterpiece, Axis: Bold As Love., in both stereo and mono versions. The title is the debut effort of Analogue Productions' and Quality Record Pressings' reintroduction of the revered Ultra High Quality Record (UHQR™), originally introduced by JVC Japan in the 1980s.

"Reintroducing the UHQR™  is one of the biggest things we've done," said Acoustic Sounds and Analogue Productions CEO Chad Kassem. "These are going to be the best records ever made. To announce the series properly we wanted to hit a home run with a huge title, and I don't know that we could have done much better than this."

This UHQR™ is newly remastered by Bernie Grundman from the original analog master tapes. Each UHQR ™ will be pressed at Acoustic Sounds' industry-leading pressing plant Quality Record Pressings (QRP) using Clarity Vinyl ®  (free of any contaminants or pigments) on a manual Finebilt press with attention paid to every single detail of every single record. The 200-gram records will feature the same flat profile that helped to make the original UHQR™ so desirable. From the lead-in groove to the run-out groove, there is no pitch to the profile, allowing the customer's stylus to play truly perpendicular to the grooves from edge to center. Clarity Vinyl® allows for the purest possible pressing and the most visually stunning presentation. Every UHQR™ will be hand inspected upon pressing completion, and only the truly flawless will be allowed to go to market. Each UHQR™ will be packaged in a deluxe box and will include a booklet detailing the entire process of making a UHQR™ along with a hand-signed certificate of inspection. This will be a truly deluxe, collectible product.

The Axis: Bold As Love UHQR™ will include a 16-page booklet featuring recording information from the sessions at Olympic Studios in London and an essay written by Brad Tolinski, former Editor of Guitar World Magazine.    

Analogue Productions has not yet specified a release date but plans to have the title available sometime  by late Summer 2018. More UHQRs will follow, Kassem said.

Each Axis UHQR™ will be available as two versions: Mono and Stereo. The Stereo release will be limited to 5,000 copies, while the mono release will be limited to 1,500 copies. The deluxe box will be gold foil numbered. Each copy will retail for $100.

Also expected to arrive in 2018 will be Hybrid SACDs of both Axis: Bold As Love, as well as Are You Experienced, the 1967 debut full-length studio release by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Produced from remastered audio by Bernie Grundman, from the original analog master tapes, each disc will include both mono and stereo mixes, and will retail for $35.

Customers can preorder their UHQR ™  and SACD copies now at www.acousticsounds.com or by calling 800-716-3553.

The original UHQR™ was made by JVC pressing plant in Japan in the early 1980s, most memorably for the original Mobile Fidelity and a few other labels. They were the highest quality LPs pressed and therefore the most expensive and collectible. 

MORE ABOUT CLARITY VINYL:

 As we set out to make the world’s best vinyl record, we began by establishing a set of exacting standards to address all of the components that comprise an LP. We call our records made under these strict standards Ultra High Quality Records (UHQR™). Most audiophiles would understand that the list of critical components in UHQR™ includes recording, mastering, plating, pressing and quality control. But some may stop short of considering the raw material used to make the record: the vinyl itself.

We did some research and learned some interesting things about the history of the iconic black vinyl record. The most compelling revelation to us was the fact that LP vinyl is not black in its pure state. The off-white color of the record you are about to listen to is the color of raw vinyl in its purest form (un-tinted vinyl). The black color you’re used to seeing is a colorant called “carbon black” that was part of the original compound formulation used in old shellac records. As vinyl compound replaced shellac-based compound, carbon black continued to be used as a colorant. We’ve expected our records to be black ever since.

To make the ultimate record, we decided to enhance sound quality by removing anything we believed could detract from it. Record styli vibrate (or jitter) on a microscopic level, and any particles of carbon black pigment that happen to be on the surface of the groove could introduce surface noise. By removing carbon black from our Clarity Vinyl® we eliminate the possibility of noise contamination due to carbon black particles. Instead, your stylus is allowed to effortlessly slide down a glossy and silky smooth groove wall.

When we purchased Classic Records, the brand name Clarity Vinyl® came with it. We're proud to have resurrected, refined and trademarked Clarity Vinyl®, the perfect canvas for our masterpiece: vinyl in its purest form.