By 1960, with Elvis’ release from the army, RCA had really improved the recording process. “Living Stereo” was a dramatic improvement over the “High Fidelity” technology of the late 1950’s. With the new studio upgrades the full spectrum of sTeReO was now possible. The engineers were pushing boundaries, delivering theContinue Reading

Culled from the leftover tracks from the magnificent Elvis Country sessions, this album has its own moments and still stands as a pretty good effort from our boy. That said, let’s look at the tape versions and see how they stand up to the vinyl release. First let’s look atContinue Reading

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I’ve collected 8-tracks since they came of age in 1969. I bought a player, and my first tape purchase was the TV Special photo box. At the time, the sound was a revelation. My Record player was just a little $9.99 portable – very cool and space-age looking – andContinue Reading

RCA carts: There are two versions of this. One uses a rivet of sorts to keep the top halves of the cart secured. To remove this I like to use a soldering iron to heat up the rivet and pry the cart halves apart. And then once the repairs are doneContinue Reading

I’ve been to just about every major library in Australia digging up material for my Australian discography and the Cadillac book. Unfortunately, a lot of the RCA material is lost but I have collected some bit by bit over many years. It seems RCA Australia stopped producing cartridges by 1977Continue Reading

Photo from Elvis Information Network website Book Review: “Elvis Presley’s GOLD Cadillac Tour of AUSTRALASIA 1968-69” by Nigel Patterson December 2011 Glenn Reimer is working with Bob Hayden on the new Cadillac book and provided details on the photo…” image taken in Australia at Albury, New South Wales. The photographerContinue Reading

When RCA released Elvis’ Stereo 8  Cartridges Tapes in October 1966, they didn’t include: Elvis’ First Album Elvis Presley, Elvis’ Second Album Elvis, Loving You, King Creole, For LP Fans Only, A Date With Elvis and Elvis’ Gold Records Vol. 2. When RCA Released Gold Records Vol.4 in 1968, theyContinue Reading

Representing Elvis on tape would not be complete without reflecting on sound quality. The closest in sound to the original RCA master tapes, was the 7½ IPS reel-to-reel format. So it’s safe to say that the 7½ IPS reel-to-reel is superior to all tape formats, including the 3¾ IPS reel-to-reelContinue Reading

When I began my A Touch of Gold book (burdened with the cumbersome subtitle The Elvis Presley Record & Memorabilia Price Guide) back in 1988, I was mostly concerned with vinyl records. While the book eventually embraced a broad spectrum of music-related Elvis collectibles, I focused my energies on 78Continue Reading