Help AIX Records Mark & Mona Waldrep Recover from Pali Fire

In response to many kind offers of support and concern, we have decided to initiate this GoFundMe campaign. On January 7, 2025, the beautiful coastal community of Pacific Palisades, California suffered an indescribable catastrophe because of a wildfire driven by hurricane force winds. Entire neighborhoods and beloved community of people who lived there are gone. Our home of 25 years was among the many thousands of homes that burned to the ground.

Many of you know us through our work at AIX Records, my blog at RealHD-Audio.com, or my book, Music and Audio: A User Guide to Better Sound. We weren’t home on the day of the fire and had no opportunity to pack up cherished items. Our home and all its contents were destroyed. Gone are the family photos, videotapes of our three children, guitars, a piano, a collection of fine art prints, and everything else. Thankfully, we are safe along with our dog Charlie. The road ahead will be full of challenges as we rebuild our lives.

In addition to the loss of countless personal items, a large percentage of the AIX Records catalog of DVD/Blu-ray discs and hundreds of copies of his book were destroyed. Mark has been servicing online orders from our Palisades house over the past five years and had relocated the studio there as well. All our equipment was also consumed in the fire — and is not covered by insurance. We lost our prized 1986 Nagra IV-S analog tape machine, the Euphonix System 5 digital console that was used to mix all of our high-resolution audio releases, dozens of signal processors and DACs, a Smyth A8 Room Realizer, and many rare microphones — a lifetime of professional gear gone in mere minutes.

We are grateful to the many people that have reached out with offers of support and have asked how they can help. If you would like to donate to this campaign, please accept our sincere and humble thanks.

Mark and Mona Waldrep