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Beginning at the end of 2003, PF established its first annual awards for fine audio. The Brutus Award was established for the best that David Robinson and Dave and Carol Clark had heard in their own listening rooms during that year. You can think of it as our equivalent of an "Editors' Choice" award. The Gizmo Award,... Read More »

Part 1: TECHNOLOGY Or why a recording is not a document and what does it mean DIGITAL SOUND RECORDING  – method of preserving sound in which audio signals are transformed into a series of pulses that correspond to patterns of binary digits (i.e., 0's and 1's) and are recorded as such on the surface of... Read More »

Drawing by Dan Zimmerman Very sad news today. I received a phone call from Mike Spurlock, of the olden days of the Oregon Triode Society, notifying me that our dear friend and colleague, John Pearsall, has passed away, aged somewhere in the 80s. He didn't have many details, but said that he had been told... Read More »

Greetings friends, I hope you are doing well. I know there's a lot of Leben HiFi Stereo Company fans out there, and today I want to tell the Leben fans in the audience about the rather rare and exotic Leben CS-300F vacuum tube integrated amplifier (photo below). Over the years, I've either owned or written... Read More »

Louis Desjardins and David W. Robinson:  a moment. (Photograph by Bill Parish; image processing by David W. Robinson) You know, I just knew that Louis Desjardins was up to something. Last spring, I got a very excited Facetime call from him, talking about a discovery that he had made. No, make that "talking about The... Read More »

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 »

Greg Weaver, a fresco portrait. Chicago, 2018 (photograph and fresco image processing by David W. Robinson) It should come as no real surprise that paradigm shifts in the performance capabilities of hyper-audio gear come rarely. In my fifty-plus years in and around this industry, I have witnessed scant few. The first came in the early... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about what we all strive for in the reproduction of our music with our systems. Roger Skoff is the founder and president of RSX Technologies, a high-end cable company, and the former founder and president of XLO. Have you ever really heard live music? Before you answer, consider this:  If you went... Read More »

It was Sunday afternoon and we were home after church. Dad had worked hard all week on his sermon, and now that the morning service was over, he just wanted to rest. He went into a little room next to the dining area, drew the curtains, turned on the television, and sank back onto the... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, Denver, CO, 2019 (photograph by Scot Hull of Part-Time Audiophile; image processing by David W. Robinson) I haven't been doing much traveling over the past couple of years. No news here:  COVID-19/Delta, you see. And thus, no audio shows. But just recently I did get an opportunity... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor in a tobacco moment (photograph by John Robinson) These thoughts are short and to the point. High-end audio is filled with reviews (many of those should read "reviews"), arguments, and endless debates about reference standards, ratings, lists, best-ofs, and so on…endlessly. There are über, no-holds-barred components/systems, at (usually) astronomical prices. Then again,... Read More »

An important announcement! The energetic and brilliant Charles Kirmuss has no grass growing under his feet as he announces changes in usage of his superb KA-RC-1 Ultrasonic Record Restoration System and newly developed and very high value speaker cables for audiophile systems. I inquired about the cleaning process since there is so much buzz associated... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about the best way to approach improving your system Just in case you'd forgotten, Roger Skoff is the former Owner/Designer of XLO Cables, and currently occupies the same position with his new company, RSX Technologies. Just about everybody knows the old saying about a chain being no stronger than its weakest link.... Read More »

Mike Moffat still photo sourced from Schiit Audio video VALENCIA, CA—Mike Moffat, 73, is co-founder of the wildly successful Schiit Audio, which turned home audio on its ear with its affordable direct sales model. With manufacturing plants in California and Corpus Christi, TX, Schiit makes electronics ranging from $100 Digital to Analog Converters (DACs) and... Read More »

David W. Robinson, a portrait in late August of 2021. (Photograph by John Robinson.) "We will serve no wine before its time." – Carlo Rossi It's time. I have a set of brief impressions about some of the audio gear that's made its way over here to Positive Feedback in 2021. The second year of... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about the stuff our stuff is made of... Many years ago, Goldmund, one of Europe's leading manufacturers of reference-quality audio products, offered individual "Cube" amplifiers to plug into and directly power each of the sections of its then US$80,000 (more like US$500K, today) Apologue speaker system. Among the talking points for these... Read More »

Whether musing about the greater understanding the Belle II particle physics experiment at KEK may bring to questions around Standard Model predictions, dark matter, and the asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the universe, or the exciting themes of parallel universes, the multiverse, and time travel that we see imaginatively explored in science fiction, physics... Read More »

Norman Varney of AV RoomService Ltd. has joined Positive Feedback as a Senior Technical Editor as of Issue 113. His expertise in his field of audio acoustics and experience in the field makes him a helpful voice in our creative community for the audio arts. As has been our wont from the beginning of PF,... Read More »

Something in my father came from somewhere else. Not knowing what it was or where it came from, I just watched and marveled. I really wanted to hang out with him, but he was the minister of a large church and I always had to wait my turn. He was usually busy caring for others... Read More »