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Ye Olde Editor, Happy Valley, Oregon, 2018. Portrait by John Robinson. Playback Designs has returned again…with a vengeance! Their Dream Series of digital audio designs debut here at PF River City with their MPS-8. Part one of my impressions is here…read on for my take on what Andreas Koch and company have achieved. The powerful... Read More »

Munich 2018, or "What the hell was that?!" Fair warning:  This is not going to be a standard show report, whatever that is. There are plenty of audio scribes, showgoers, bloggers, and videographers running around high-end audio shows these days. There are tons of articles, postings, discussions, YouTube videos, bloggo-blather, and camera dumps going on,... Read More »

Image courtesy of Accustic Arts A bloody busy year so far, with much more to go. One of the projects that I took on very early in 2018...with some hesitation, I confess, due to the workload that was already building...was an offer to hear the Accustic Arts Tube Preamp II Mk2 and Mono II Monoblock... Read More »

You may have noticed a trend over the years in my response to high-end audio shows. I've gravitated more and more to photographs not of products, but of people. Less and less of audio porn; more and more of the folks who make up the slightly mad world of fine audio. There are plenty of... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor, in medias res… (photograph by John Robinson) No, this is not a major review. It is more of a retrospective and reflection on what I've heard in the upgrade of our LampizatOr Golden Gate DSD DAC from its original design to its new Golden Gate 2 version. As it turns out, that upgrade... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor contemplating the mysteries of life and audio…  (Photograph by John Robinson) Back in the winter of 2017 (HERE in Issue 94), I shared my evaluation of the Sound Galleries SGM2015 reference-level Music Server. Since a music server cannot be reviewed without also considering either an internal or downstream DAC, my comments had... Read More »

Image courtesy of Pear Audio Blue Damnation. Time is sand through the fingers, crap through the goose. Projects pile up, deadlines come and go, and the best intentions of rodents and humans crash and burn. Turntables. Tonearms. Cartridges. LPs. Reissues. New record companies. New pressing plants. A glory of riches, getting better and better over... Read More »

David W. Robinson, Happy Valley, OR, 2015 (photograph by John Robinson) "For photography is a way to capture the moment – not just any moment, but the important one, this one moment out of all time when your subject is revealed to the fullest – that moment of perfection which comes once and is not... Read More »

David W. Robinson, Icicle Creek, Leavenworth, WA, 2012 (photograph by Lila Ritsema) "Anything that excites me for any reason, I will photograph; not searching for unusual subject matter, but making the commonplace unusual." Edward Weston To say again:  As I mentioned back in November in Issue 94 when I published the front-end about my trip... Read More »

David W. Robinson, RMAF 2015 (photograph by Jeff Day) As I mentioned back in November in Issue 94 when I published the front-end about my trip to visit Chad Kassem's Blues Masters concert in Salina, KS, my attention would not be concentrating on yet another dull event report. The world doesn't need any more of... Read More »

The van den Hul Extender in place on top of the Evolution Acoustics MM2 Loudspeaker From time to time I've roiled the tempestuous waters of high-end audio…rough enough already, without additional help from me…with favorable observations about my experiences with various system-enhancing components. Lord knows, I've patiently endured the shouting so-called "objectivists," who assert that... Read More »

Music/Labels, and Other Special Awards This year's list of Brutus Awards for labels/sites/enterprises is going to look a lot like past years. Why? Easy. "The best indicator of future performance is usually past performance," as a friend of mine once said. And these recipients all have histories of getting it done. On to it, then.... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor, contemplating life... Nagra HD DAC with MPS External Power Supply One of the legendary companies in fine audio is Nagra. As a lifelong lover of reel-to-reel recorders, I've known the name for decades…it's highly respected. In conjunction with the extraordinary Sound Galleries SGM2015, we brought in two different DSD DACs to receive... Read More »

So soon! Another year, another time to announce my Brutus Awards for 2017. Every year seems to go by faster, and this year was no exception. As longtime readers know, I instituted the Positive Feedback Brutus Awards way back in the mists of time…yonder in 2003. And every year, for the new readers who have... Read More »

In which our hero meditates… The Audionet HEISENBERG Monoblock Amplifiers, bi-amped, with the YG Acoustics Sonja XV Loudspeakers and Kubala-Sosna Realization cables. In the fall of 2016 I reported on an extraordinary time that I had when I flew to Newark, NJ, and visited Bill Parish of GTT Audio for the launch of the brilliant... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor, a portrait. (Photograph by John Robinson; image processing by Ye Olde Etc.) I made a recent trip to Salina, Kansas to catch the 20th Anniversary Acoustic Sounds/Analogue Productions Blues Master weekend. My good audiobud Chad Kassem had been asking me to catch this event for twenty years now, and I had always... Read More »

In which our hero meditates… (Drawing by Robinson at a particularly boring faculty meeting many years ago….) What's the deal with me and German designs? In my later adult life, I've gravitated to a lot of products from our friends in Germania. While I'm not in the market for, say, guns, artillery pieces, or tanks,... Read More »

Back in Issue 92 of Positive Feedback, Bob Levi did a review of the Unique Innovations Technology (UIT) Perfect Music Purifier Series of audiophile cables that he had recently discovered. According to Bob, the UIT cables provided quite a substantial percentage of top-notch performance at sub-$1000 pricing. In his summary, he stated, "The Unique Innovation Technology... Read More »

The GamuT Lobster Chair in the sweet spot at the PF listening room in River City. "And now," said Monty Python, "for something completely different!" When planning, setting up, or upgrading their listening rooms, audio folks don't usually spend too much time considering furniture. After all, loudspeakers. Electronics. Turntables. DSD. RTR tape. Racks. Cables. For... Read More »