Some live albums arrive as victory laps. The Baddest Show on Earth: Greatest Hits Live arrives more like corroborating evidence.

Craft Recordings released the collection on June 12, and yes, we are a few weeks late to the bar. But George Thorogood and the Destroyers are still out playing dates across Europe, the UK, and the U.S., so this is less an archival dust-off than a reminder that the operation remains loud, mobile, and only vaguely interested in behaving itself.

The vinyl edition is not a sprawling career retrospective. It is a tightly edited seven-track set that moves between 1978, 1980, 1982, and 2024, pairing the expected staples with four previously unreleased performances. That structure is the point. “Who Do You Love?” and “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” catch the band in its early, hungry phase; “Bad to the Bone” comes from a 1982 Boston performance; and “Born to Be Bad,” recorded in Sarasota in 2024, makes the case that Thorogood has not spent the past four decades quietly becoming a heritage-act wallpaper salesman. You are confusing him with Rod Stewart.

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For vinyl buyers, this is the compact version of the story: seven songs, no padding, and a sensible emphasis on the band’s central strength. Thorogood’s records have always had their place, but the Destroyers were built for stages, bad lighting, overworked bartenders, and rooms full of people who did not come to hear anything subtle. The expanded CD and digital editions go deeper with 11 tracks, but the LP gets straight to the point with considerably less ceremony.

That matters because The Baddest Show on Earth Tour is still rolling. The band plays Wolverhampton on June 29 and London on June 30 before continuing through Finland, Minnesota, Vermont, and California later this summer and fall. For a catalog built on a handful of songs that have been played hard enough to qualify as public infrastructure, this set is not trying to reinvent George Thorogood. It is simply proving that the engine still starts on the first turn.

The first time I heard George Thorogood was almost certainly over the air in Toronto, probably on Q107, which had been the city’s album-rock station since 1977. It was far more likely to unleash something as greasy and gloriously unvarnished as “Bad to the Bone” than 1050 CHUM’s Top 40 format or 104.5 CHUM-FM. I cannot prove the exact spin all these decades later, but the memory feels right: that riff hitting the speakers, a teenager suddenly convinced that a leather jacket, a pool table, and terrible judgment were a viable life plan.

My other recollection also checks out. “Bad to the Bone” was Barry Champlain’s theme on Oliver Stone’s 1988 Talk Radio, with Eric Bogosian playing the ferociously confrontational talk show host and John C. McGinley as Stu, his DJ and friend. Years before McGinley made a career out of verbally disassembling people as Dr. Cox, he was already standing near a microphone while someone else made the room deeply uncomfortable.

Live albums are hit or miss. Labels and artists rarely choose the worst performance of a best-selling song for release, although anyone with a few shelves of concert records knows that it happens. Selecting the right versions of these tracks was probably not an easy task.

Thorogood and the Destroyers played constantly, often in venues that were less than ideal, but one thing George never did was mail it in. The band understood that the job was to hit the stage hard, make the room move, and leave the audience a little worse for wear. And probably a tad hard in the backseat in the parking lot if they were lucky that night.

And that matters, because not every veteran act can still pull it off. Looking directly at Robert Smith and The Cure, whose Disintegration rehash in New York a few years back was a complete mess. I have seen The Cure five times going back to the 1980s, and that performance was not remotely up to their usual standard. It was a total waste.

This live set is definitely not a stinker. Thorogood sounds committed, the band is locked in, and the performances still have the kind of loose, barroom danger that made these songs work in the first place.

Is The Baddest Show on Earth: Greatest Hits Live a Blue Note Tone Poet-level pressing in terms of sound quality? No. That would be an absurd benchmark for a hard-driving live blues rock set assembled from performances recorded across four decades.

What it does offer is a clean, detailed, hard-hitting presentation that is noticeably quieter than my older Thorogood records from the period, all of which were purchased at Sam the Record Man in Toronto and have survived more study sessions, moves, and questionable evenings with the boys than they probably deserved. The LP is well centered, the surfaces are quiet, and the new jacket is a clear step up from the thinner, more utilitarian packaging that accompanied a lot of his original releases.

Sonically, it has the right kind of crunch. The guitars bite, the drums have real weight, and the band retains enough rawness to sound like a live George Thorogood record should. It is not audiophile showroom material, but it is far better than a nostalgia cash grab pressed onto noisy vinyl in a flimsy sleeve.

Our Ratings

★★★★★★★★★★ Sound Quality

★★★★★★★★★★ Pressing Quality

★★★★★★★★★★ Album

Where to buy

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Code in the latest iOS 27 developer beta describes handling images from a pair of cameras, and hints that these are surely the expected AirPods with cameras.

AirPods with cameras may have long been expected, but the most recent leak claimed that Apple has “suspended” the whole project. Whether it has or not, the device got far enough that there are references to it in the latest iOS 27 developer beta.

That social media posting from coder Sam Henri Gold posits that the code in the screenshot hints at “smart glasses codenamed B790.”

However, the code segment, called a response template, contains instructions for processing a very specific type of image. It concerns, and only concerns, “two images from cameras on either side of user’s head (left first, right second).”

If it weren’t for that, it could be for some future pair of smart glasses. Or it could as easily be code referring to the Apple Vision Pro.

However, specifying that there are two cameras and they are on either side of the wearer’s head must surely mean that AirPods are more likely. The expected update to the AirPods Pro is believed to contain cameras in the stems of the earbud, arranged to face forward of the wearer.

There are all sorts of issues with this, starting with how these stems would surely need to be at least a little elongated. The stems on the current AirPods Pro are angled so that they only slightly protrude from the ear.

Then there are also concerns about privacy, and how Apple will indicate to people that an AirPods wearer is filming or photographing them.

Nonetheless, there are no other Apple devices that currently exist, or have been rumored. That includes the various future iterations of the Apple Vision Pro or its successors that have been mooted.

There could well be a device that hasn’t leaked yet, or perhaps it’s for a version of AirPods Max with cameras. But it seems certain that this code means AirPods Pro with cameras, which does not mean they are launching soon, but does bolster another recent claim that the devices have been in an advanced stage of testing.

Audio Group Denmark has introduced the Aavik U-301 Unity Amplifier, an all-in-one high-end component that combines a streamer, DAC, preamplifier, and power amplifier in a single chassis. Building on the original U-300 Integrated Amplifier from 2015, the U-301 is designed for listeners who want fewer boxes, fewer cables, and a far cleaner installation without accepting the sonic shortcuts that often come with conventional systems.

That is an increasingly relevant proposition at the upper end of the market. Plenty of high-end buyers still want exceptional sound, but not necessarily a rack full of separates, costly power cords, and enough interconnects to keep a small cable manufacturer in business. The U-301 is intended to preserve signal integrity, timing, low noise, and musical coherence by keeping the critical stages of the signal path under one roof.

Aavik is not a brand built around affordable entry-level products, and the U-301 makes the most sense within Audio Group Denmark’s tightly controlled ecosystem of amplification, streaming, cabling, power management, and loudspeaker partners. For the right buyer, however, that ecosystem approach may be the point: a genuinely high-end system with far less visual clutter and fewer opportunities for the weak link to announce itself.

A Complete High End System in One Chassis

The U-301’s preamp stage gives the one-box design a useful expansion path. Its single RCA preamp output delivers up to 7.5Vrms, with 76 volume steps in 1dB increments and quoted line-stage distortion below 0.005 percent, allowing the U-301 to drive an external power amplifier when more scale or a different amplifier pairing is desired. 

U-301 DAC: High Resolution PCM, MQA and Native DSD Support

Aavik’s proprietary DSD-upscaling DAC is not merely a digital convenience feature. The U-301 accepts PCM up to 24-bit/192kHz through BNC S/PDIF and optical inputs, while its USB UAC 2.0 connection supports PCM up to 32-bit/384kHz, MQA, DSD64, and DSD128. That gives the U-301 the format support expected of a serious high-end digital hub, while avoiding the usual pile of external boxes.

U-301 Streaming: A Wired Network First Approach

The U-301’s streaming platform follows Audio Group Denmark’s established ecosystem, using a wired Ethernet connection and the AGD Streaming App for iPad control. Built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are not listed, and Android compatibility has not been indicated, so this is a deliberately focused rather than platform-agnostic approach.

Through the AGD app, users can access TIDAL, Qobuz, Spotify, vTuner internet radio, local music servers, NAS storage, USB hard drives, and USB sticks. Multi-room playback is also supported, allowing compatible AGD devices to be grouped together. It is a capable feature set, but one aimed at buyers comfortable with a wired network and Apple’s iPad ecosystem.

U-301 Amplification: 300 Watts Per Channel from Pascal Class D

The U-301 uses an amplifier stage derived from Aavik’s I-x88 series, built around Pascal Class D technology with high-speed UMAC modulation. Rated at 300 watts per channel into 8 ohms and 600 watts into 4 ohms, it is designed to provide the efficiency, low output impedance, and peak-current capability needed to maintain control over a wide range of loudspeakers. 

Mechanical Grounding

To address vibration-related noise, Aavik equips the U-301 with Ansuz Darkz feet, designed to limit the transfer of structure-borne vibration into the chassis. The company also offers optional Darkz resonance-control devices for owners who want to take that approach further.

These accessories use precision mechanical assemblies and hard materials to manage vibration and resonance around the component. It is a distinctly Audio Group Denmark solution: the U-301 is not treated as an isolated amplifier, but as part of a larger ecosystem where mechanical grounding is considered alongside power supply design and electrical noise reduction.

U-301 Design: Scandinavian Minimalism With a Purpose

The U-301 continues Aavik’s restrained Scandinavian design language, combining an aluminum frame, integrated cooling elements, large LCD display, substantial front-mounted control knob, and three integrated pushbuttons. Thick wood-based laminate top and bottom panels add warmth to what could otherwise be a very industrial-looking component.

The design, created by Flemming Erik Rasmussen, is intended to do more than look expensive on a rack. Aavik says the enclosure also supports resonance control and helps protect the audio circuitry from mechanically induced noise. As Michael Børresen, Audio Group Denmark co-founder and CTO, explains: “The design process of the U-301 felt like a return to Aavik’s origins and our first unity amplifier. With Flemming’s input, the U-301 pays homage to that heritage while clearly pointing toward the future.”

Aavik U-301 Specifications

The Bottom Line 

The Aavik U-301 is not attempting to make $17,000 sound sensible to everyone. It is a serious one-box solution for buyers who want high-end streaming, digital conversion, preamplification, and 300 watts per channel without a rack full of components, cable clutter, and the usual matching exercise that accompanies separates.

Its real advancement over the original U-300 is not greater amplifier output, but a more streaming-focused architecture built around Aavik’s newer I-x88-derived Class D platform, resonant-mode power supply, and the broader Audio Group Denmark approach to electrical and mechanical noise control. The U-301 is a tightly integrated high-end system rather than a conventional integrated amplifier with a DAC bolted onto the side.

The glaring omission is the lack of a built-in phono stage. The U-300 offered one, while vinyl listeners considering the U-301 will need an external phono preamp, another cable, and another box. That rather undermines the “just add speakers” pitch for anyone with a turntable, although it does create an obvious path toward Aavik’s dedicated R-Series phono stages.

The U-301 will make the most sense for a streaming-first, two-channel listener who wants fewer boxes without stepping down into lifestyle-audio territory. It is not the connectivity equivalent of a Swiss Army knife, and the published materials do not position it as one. But for buyers committed to the Audio Group Denmark ecosystem and willing to pay for Danish engineering, design, and a very specific approach to system integration, the U-301 looks like one of the more ambitious all-in-one amplifiers available.

Price & Availability

The Aavik U-301 Unity Amplifier will be available for $17,000 (€15,000) beginning October 2026 through Authorized Audio Group Denmark Dealers.

For more information: audiogroupdenmark.com

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Adrian Hill’s highly effective vaccine exceeded the World Health Organization’s protection targets of 75pc to 80pc in clinical trials.

Ireland’s Adrian Hill has received the European Patent Office’s European Inventor Award 2026 in the research category for his work developing the R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine.

The highly effective vaccine achieved roughly 80pc protection in clinical trials, exceeding even World Health Organization (WHO) targets of 75pc. 

Designed for large-scale deployment in lower-income countries, the awarding body noted, the vaccine created by Hill and his team presents more of the malaria-specific protein regions needed to trigger a strong immune response, which offers significantly more protection against the disease than traditional vaccines. 

It costs less than €3 to make per dose and can remain stable for up to two years under standard refrigeration conditions, helping make vaccination programmes more accessible in regions where malaria remains endemic, according to the European Patent Office. 

Commenting on the win, Hill said, “I am delighted to accept this prestigious award on behalf of the many hundreds of people who have contributed to the discovery, development and licensure of our malaria vaccine over the past 12 years.”

Hill’s commitment to malaria research began in Gambia in 1988 when he witnessed the impact the illness can have, particularly on young children. According to the WHO, in 2024 there were 282m cases of malaria causing roughly 610,000 deaths globally. Three-quarters of those reported deaths were in Africa-based children under five. 

The project brought together partners including the University of Oxford, the Serum Institute of India, Novavax, and leading African research centres in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania. 

The awards show was held in Berlin; other inventors competing with Hill included Portuguese research finalist Paula Videira and her team, who were nominated for a high-precision antibody that distinguishes cancer cells from healthy tissue.

Finnish physicist Mikko Möttönen was considered for his work developing an ultrasensitive cryogenic microwave sensor that aims to improve quantum computing hardware.

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