Maurice Jeffries, Author at Positive Feedback

The New Apartment Lounge - There and Back Again: Wrapping My Head Around Kronos Audio′s Radical Kronoscope RS Tonearm

Maurice Jeffries — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 20:40:45 +0000

New Kids on the Block Back in late fall 2021, as most of the nation impatiently wiped layer upon accumulated layer of sleep from COVID-19 weary eyes, GTT Audio & Video's head honcho Bill Parish bravely invited a small group of reviewers to his sprawling suburban New Jersey listening rooms, amongst the finest such spaces... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Von Schweikert Audio's Game Changing Center Stage2 "LS" 0.8 Series Loudspeaker Footers

Maurice Jeffries — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 17:18:50 +0000

Back Up the Loudspeaker Evolutionary Ladder Last summer I waxed enthusiastically about Von Schweikert Audio's remarkable Endeavor Special Edition (ESE) loudspeakers (HERE), one of the finest components to have graced my home during my many years as a reviewer. Compact in dimensions (an important consideration here at the Lounge), blessed with first-rate fit and finish,... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Von Schweikert Audio's Stealth-Bomber Endeavor Special Edition Loudspeaker

Maurice Jeffries — Sun, 10 Jul 2022 18:04:00 +0000

Up and Down the Loudspeaker Evolutionary Ladder From its inception nearly 40 years ago, Von Schweikert Audio has adhered fanatically to a unifying corpus of science-driven principles first championed by company founder and former chief engineer Albert Von Schweikert, sadly no longer with us. Albert's science-centered reimagining of modern loudspeaker design utilized applied psychoacoustic observations... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Mola Mola's Grooving Tambaqui DAC

Maurice Jeffries — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 19:55:25 +0000

Design as Art Readers who've followed this column know that I hold Dutch firm Mola Mola's svelte line of hip twenty-first century electronics in extremely high regard. Elegant in form, compact in dimensions, pragmatically intuitive in set-up and day-to-day operation, and blessed with reference-caliber sonics, the Mola Mola lineup offers just about everything the audiophile... Read More »

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An Audio Triangulation, Part 2: Up the Long Ladder...Maurice Jeffries Weighs in on the KRONOS Discovery LP Playback System and What It Signals for High-End Audio

Maurice Jeffries — Sat, 06 Nov 2021 21:36:35 +0000

Up the Long Ladder Maurice Jeffries at GTT Audio: a portrait. Long Valley, NJ, 2021 I won't rehash here either the science behind KRONOS Audio's remarkable line of turntables, or the engineering insights that led Louis Desjardin, the turntable design world's current enfant terrible, to pursue his revolutionary approach to turntable design. Instead, I'll begin... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: The Mola Mola Kula Integrated Amplifier (with Onboard DAC and Phono Stage) Reimagines Downsizing

Maurice Jeffries — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 15:27:42 +0000

All Creatures Great and Small As a mid-50s baby boomer, I face the daunting but simultaneously liberating task of deciding which of my possessions to keep and which to jettison. For most of my adult life, I have chosen smaller, carefully curated living spaces over "mcmansions," a preference more and more Americans have embraced, young and... Read More »

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Florida Audio Expo 2020: Better the Second Time Around, Part 2

Maurice Jeffries — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 17:13:21 +0000

Vaughn Loudspeaker's Zinfandel 9-0 Compact Line Array, with their bespoke plasma tweeters and line array mid-bass driver configuration, sounded magically present and open. Alison Krause and company illuminated the back third of the room with convincing depth layering, rich tone, and impressive image stability. My notes highlighted the system's impressive dynamic punch, good overall transparency... Read More »

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Florida Audio Expo 2020: Better the Second Time Around, Part 1

Maurice Jeffries — Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:45:53 +0000

As I suspected on the drive down to Tampa on Friday, February 7, 2020 to cover the Florida Audio Expo 2020 show for Positive Feedback, the second running of this new show proved even more delightful than its debutante "coming out" reveal. An even larger number of enthusiastic audiophiles, exhibitors, journalists, and show organizers descended... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge - The Audience AdeptResponse aR12-T4 Power Conditioner and frontRow powerChord

Maurice Jeffries — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 18:56:15 +0000

Removing the Wool A few months back, I received an out-of-the-blue text message from an old friend whom I've known for over 40 years. My friend messaged to express his dismay over what he saw as a serious lapse in judgement by his older brother, a life-long audiophile, accomplished amateur violinist, and highly successful business... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Minimalism Redux - The "Not So Little" Kronos Sparta 0.5 Turntable

Maurice Jeffries — Sun, 22 Dec 2019 22:36:33 +0000

I first raved about the stunning Kronos Sparta 0.5 turntable back in the fall in a teasing preview report (HERE). In my opening salvo, I described the sound of the littlest, but hardly little, Kronos turntable (the model weighs roughly 50 lbs. and measures a healthy 20 in (W) x 14 in (D) x 7... Read More »

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Reimagining Net Neutrality: The Mola Mola Kaluga Class D Mono Power Amplifiers and Companion Makua Preamplifier (with onboard DAC and Phono Modules)

Maurice Jeffries — Fri, 27 Sep 2019 17:06:19 +0000

The Unbearable Joy of Thinking Outside the Box Now that GTT Audio & Video head Bill Parish and I are finally back on friendly terms (heck, he even calls me on the phone occasionally to give me a hard time, and to ask when I plan on finishing the reviews I promised to write, if... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge - It's Raining Wires: The Stunning Kubala-Sosna Research Sensation Cable Loom

Maurice Jeffries — Sun, 01 Sep 2019 18:42:35 +0000

The Unbearable Simplicity of Good Design At the start of the summer, I waxed enthusiastic about the arrival of a boatload of new goodies that have made listening to music here at Casa Jeffries an unalloyed pleasure (HERE). Amongst the newcomers, the spectacular Kubala-Sosna Sensation cable loom really stood out. In my preview, I praised... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Smooth Sailing with the Pear Audio Blue Kid Howard Turntable and Cornet 2 Tonearm

Maurice Jeffries — Sun, 21 Jul 2019 17:36:48 +0000

The Unbearable Lightness of Low-Torque Motors and Heavy Platters Of the various turntable manufacturers to embrace the design principles of the late Tom Fletcher, founder of Nottingham Analogue, Pear Audio is perhaps the most visible in the United States. Other players in this expanding universe include Palmer Audio and Analogue Works, both British firms if... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: When My Boat Comes In

Maurice Jeffries — Fri, 05 Jul 2019 20:03:08 +0000

In this installment of the New Apartment Lounge, Maurice Jeffries takes a long hard listen to the stunning Mola Mola amp/preamp suite, an almost affordable turntable from Kronos Audio, and some smooth-sounding new cables from Kubala-Sosna Research LLC. With a fresh set of ears and new insights, he also revisits an old and trusted friend.... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Two Memorable Winter Road Trips

Maurice Jeffries — Sat, 15 Jun 2019 18:19:49 +0000

Back to the Midwest-SR In late January 2019, over the MLK holiday weekend no less, I ventured north by northwest from Florida to the wilds of exurban Indiana to pay my close audio bud, Greg Weaver, a long-overdue visit. I made a similar trek a year earlier to hear his then reference setup, namely Audionet's... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Solid-State Joy with Parasound's New HINT 6 Halo Integrated Amplifier

Maurice Jeffries — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 19:25:17 +0000

Don't Mess with Success Armed with a seemingly boundless reservoir of engineering creativity, a healthy dose of professional humility, and keen market instincts, the stealth-like stalwarts at San Francisco-based Parasound continue to re-calibrate accepted price-vs-performance expectations in the high end. The firm has survived (and thrived) not by touting revolutionary design advances to its... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge Streaming Magic: The Superb AURALiC ARIES G1 Wireless Streaming Transporter

Maurice Jeffries — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 15:58:48 +0000

Digital Marches On Back in Issue 96 (HERE), Managing Editor Dave Clark put the AURALiC ARIES G2 Streaming Transporter ($3999) through its paces, praising that unit for its relative ease-of-use and naturally unforced, but also superbly detailed, sound. More recently, Alex Brinkman, AURALiC North America's Marketing Director, reached out to see if I wanted to... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Silnote Audio's Enticing Poseidon Signature II Master Reference Speaker Cable

Maurice Jeffries — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 17:38:18 +0000

The Persistence of Myth If you've followed this hobby long enough, you've no doubt heard the oft-repeated barb that "all audio cables sound the same." In my estimation there is no more misleading or unsubstantiated audio shibboleth, one embraced widely by legions of the "all components sound the same brigade," than this misguided trope. Sadly,... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: It's an Analogue World Part 2 - JE Audio's Delightful HP20 Phono Amplifier

Maurice Jeffries — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 23:06:10 +0000

Inauspicious Beginnings This review has seen all manner of fits and starts. It began, as do most such endeavors, nobly intended. There was, first and foremost, my heartfelt desire to learn more about a product line (JE Audio's) that I had only recently discovered, but about which others here at Positive Feedback had written extensively.... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Mighty Midgets - The Gravity Defying Studio Electric M4 Monitor Loudspeakers

Maurice Jeffries — Tue, 04 Dec 2018 17:37:58 +0000

Great First Impressions I'll never forget the look on Greg Weaver's face the moment he and I got to hear (at the AXPONA 2018 high end show) what Studio Electric and chief designer Dave McPherson's latest thinking on what small loudspeakers, the diminutive M4, could do. Greg had that classic "I told you so" grin... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: It's an Analogue World Part 1 - The Sutherland Engineering 20/20 Phono Stage

Maurice Jeffries — Mon, 26 Nov 2018 19:17:38 +0000

When Less Offers More In Issue 96 (this review has taken far too long, about which more in Part 2), I previewed several knockout products that had taken up temporary residence here at the Lounge (HERE). One of the new arrivals, Ron Sutherland's knockout 20/20 phono preamp, a unit that has been available to music... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Musical Fidelity's Scrumptious M6 Encore 225 Integrated Amplifier

Maurice Jeffries — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 15:43:28 +0000

A Distinguished Legacy My use of, and admiration for, the expansive range of audio products from British manufacturer Musical Fidelity (recently purchased by none other than Heinz Lichtenegger, the director of Pro-Ject Audio Systems and a close friend of retiring Musical Fidelity head Antony Michaelson) dates back almost 20 years. In the late 1990s I... Read More »

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Papa's Got a Brand New Bag Part 2: AXPONA 2018

Maurice Jeffries — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 18:17:37 +0000

In Part I of my AXPONA 2018 show report, I highlighted several "costs more than my first house" mega-systems, systems that only the up-and-coming hedge fund manager or successful neurosurgeon can afford. For those of us who have mortgages to pay, intend to finance our children's educations (in full or in part), still make car... Read More »

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Papa's Got a Brand New Bag: AXPONA 2018

Maurice Jeffries — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 00:00:27 +0000

For 2018, AXPONA moved to a bigger, shinier, swankier venue, showed up with real attitude and renewed swagger, and hosted noticeably bigger crowds. The Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center, a ginormous, and ginormously over-the-top Bauhaus-influenced conference center, blessed with the amenities and exhibition capacity to handle a show the size of AXPONA, replaces the... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Piercing the Electroacoustic Veil with Audionet's Paradigm-Shifting WATT Integrated Amplifier

Maurice Jeffries — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 23:10:27 +0000

Will Wonders Never Cease A recurring nightmare haunts my dreams. In the nightmare, some guy named Bill Parish of GTT Audio continually harasses me with phone calls, texts, and emails imploring yours truly to return the Audionet WATT integrated amp that took up residence hear at Casa Jeffries a little over a month ago (and... Read More »

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