Blog intro, Rich's Record Emporium, Collinsville, IL, Music, Record and Equipment Reviews

Blog Intro for Rich's Record Emporium in Collinsville Illinois www.RichsRecordEmporium.com

Music Reviews (mostly vinyl records, but also audiophile CD's)
I don’t know about you, but as someone who’s really into music, I like a variety of genres. The only problem with this of course, is zeroing in on the best stuff from each one. One problem is that radio doesn’t really play that variety. Of course, there are exploration sites like Pandora, but you still have to do a lot of research to figure out “who” you may really like, but that still doesn’t tell you anything about the quality of their recordings, or if you can even get them on the best medium of course - “vinyl”.

So this got me to thinking – wouldn’t it be great if those who were really into a particular genre took the time to point out the really outstanding gems?

This is the first goal for our music selection, and the main goal of our music reviews. To provide a selection of outstanding recordings, across all genres. To achieve the main goal of our music reviews we will be striving to provide comprehensive reviews which help you to figure out what within that selection is going to bring you the most satisfaction. So at our store, we will strive to not only provide an outstanding selection of audiophile or fine quality recordings, but to help those who are looking to explore new genres get a taste of what may be the real gems, and point out those which are the better recordings.

So one of the subjects for our blogs will be these music reviews highlighting the “classic must own masterpieces” of different genres, and also pointing out those “lesser known hidden gems” that only those truly intimate with that genre may know about.


Now if you're like me, when you read a music review of an artist or genre you are already familiar with sometimes you know you're going to buy the album just so long as it's not a complete dud on sound quality, so I will be getting to the "audiophile determination" right away so you don't have to sift through all the text just to find out how good it sounds.  We rate recordings on a scale of 1 - 10, 1-3 being the typical condition you hear on a used record in a Goldmond rated condition of good to very good, 4-5 being a used record Goldmond rating of near mint to mint, and 6 - 10 for varying degrees of really excellent recordings. We will also use a similar scale for music content or production quality. We rate only new records that we've opened for demonstration purposes. But we use used record standards as there are none for new records.

Equipment Reviews

The record “Emporium” as the name suggests is more than just records. We will be carrying a great selection of equipment and accessories associated to vinyl, as well as personal audio stuff, such as record cleaning machines, new stylus or cartridges, tonearms, turntables, & vinyl “tweeks.” Also, personal listening gear such as ear buds/phones, DAC’s, amps, and a nice selection of home Hi-Fi stereo equipment and speakers.

For those with older turntables, “See our website/Facebook page’ to get into one of our monthly “turntable” clinics to rejuvenate or tune-up that old vinyl spinner!

So this blog will serve to accomplish many things from record reviews (and CD reviews) for those who wish to own the genuine article, to equipment reviews to keep you up-to-date on all the latest stuff.
"Cheers"