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The Audiophile Record Collector’s Handbook (ARCH) has been in print since 1991. It is aimed mainly at collectors of fine sounding analogue stereo LP records. In this sense it was responding to a worldwide interest in vinyl LPs from the standpoint of their great sound quality. During the latter part of the 1990s the enormous interest in stereo records began to reduce from its almost obsessive levels and people began to take more interest in the mono recordings of the 1950s. I am not ashamed to include myself in this. In a way it has been like returning to one’s musical roots, replacing the concerns of audiophile stereo (image placement, depth, dynamic levels, etc) with the deeper concerns of true music making (artistic sincerity, emotional immediacy, etc). It seems obvious that the same demand that made ARCH so popular also exists for the mono LPs. The basic requirement for any collector is to have full details of what there is to collect. The information in this book represents the labour of many years, not just by the author, but by many others too. I have been a record collector and/or dealer for many years. I first became aware of the great sound quality of some of the early Deccas and RCA shaded dogs during the mid 80s. I then formed a collection including practically every worthwhile RCA shaded dog, Mercury, Decca SXL, EMI ASD, SAX, Lyrita, etc. This collection was acquired by a process of swapping records with many internationally based fellow collectors. Around 1989 I started selling records in my spare time, and in 1993 this became a full time activity. The business was joined by my wife, Jan, in 1994 and has since supplied many thousands of audiophile records to collectors all over the world, being generally regarded as the premier international source of quality English vinyl.
