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In which our hero meditates… What a year it's been. As I observed in the first of these "Brief Impressions" articles, on the Oppo Sonica (HERE), there have been so bloody many products and projects here at PF Central in 2016 that I'll be writing from here until the end of the year to cover... Read More »

Incredibili Sine Compromissum   This is it. Think of Trader Joe's. The Hyundai Genesis. A Hamilton watch, Uniqlo clothing, a CAO cigar, the...well, you may begin to get the idea. Bear witness: this is the Alpha Design Labs STRATOS and it is the hidden value champion of USB DAC's. Long may it reign. God Knows... Read More »

[I'm pleased that our longtime cartoonist, Bruce Walker, is becoming active with us again. His unique style of edgy, crazy, Feifferesque drawings are unlike anyone else that I know of. He's been drawing for us on and off again from the very early days of Positive Feedback...we hope to have new work from him periodically. Enjoy!... Read More »

Funny thing. You'd think that there wouldn't be any enormous mountaintops in Newark, New Jersey. And you'd be wrong…. Let me explain. Bill Parish of GTT Audio A couple of months ago I got an invitation from Dick Diamond of YG Acoustics, Bill Parish of GTT Audio, and Joe Kubala of Kubala-Sosna to attend a... Read More »

Select members of the audio press were invited to GTT Audio for the YG Acoustics Sonja XV speaker press event. Over the course of a week, each of us got to experience a personal listening session. Lynn and I were scheduled for the afternoon of the first day; Dr. David Robinson, ye olde editor at... Read More »

Dirk Sommer, with photographs by Helmut Baumgartner For everyone who takes a real interest in High End it's a truism that even the best equipment can't recreate a live impression. This alleged fact, however, while perhaps not refuted, would be at least seriously shaken by visiting the Audio Forum in Duisburg, Germany, the Acapella Audio... Read More »

It was a glorious day for a Hudson River crossing, with clear skies and endless visibility, the kind of day that photographers love. Lynn and I were off to visit Distinctive Stereo in northern New Jersey. We boarded the New York Waterway ferry at West 39th Street. Eight minutes later we docked at Port Imperial/Weehawken,... Read More »

Great news! Positive Feedback and NativeDSD (http://www.nativeDSD.com) announce the release of a joint music project, the PF DSD Sampler, Volume 1. This project was done to celebrate NativeDSD.com's amazing achievement of passing 1000 albums at its site in early September of 2016. The PF DSD Sampler, Volume 1 is a collection of ten selections from... Read More »

So here I am retired, and with lots of time. Time for music, beer, wine, the magazine… my art and more (like being on the Board of Directors for two non-profits here in LB—yikers what have I done?)... and time to listen to our music with the PS Audio BHK Signature Preamplifier and DirectStream DAC.... Read More »

Brief Impressions:  From an Editor's Notebook In which our hero meditates… What a year it's been. There have been so many products and projects here at PF Central in 2016 that I'll be writing from here until the end of the bloody year to cover them all. Some of these will require a more extended... Read More »

The DirectStream Junior DAC is my first in-home experience with a PS Audio product. It is also a brand-spanking new product, so my thanks to PS Audio's Marketing Director, Bill Leebens for making it happen. Having such a hot product on my review-plate does not happen to me that often. It's awesomely cool... It's Steve McQueen... Read More »

If one has to use the word "legendary" to describe a musician or band,  then when applied to the King Crimson it would be relatively painless from where I stand. Founded in London in January 1969 still the same year, in October they released the album that, let's not start to be modest now, forever... Read More »

[The Boston Symphony Orchestra has been entangled with Tanglewood for decades. This outdoor setting of historical (for America) lineage has seen more than its share of great orchestral works over the years, thus affirming the blessing of the original benefaction given by the Tappan family back in 1936. John Marks, editor and writer at The Tannhauser... Read More »

Oh damn!! There goes my new dedicated power supply!

"On a cost vs. sound quality basis (alone), Digital Amplifier Company DAC DAC may be the best digital to analog converter to come along in 3 decades; all the way back to the extremely costly & extraordinary $12,000 Stax DAC-X1t Vacuum Tube Output Reference D/A Processor (1989)!" Introduction There are an extremely wide range of choices... Read More »

A couple of years ago (wow, make that like 3 years and you can read it HERE) I had the pleasure of reviewing the Vandersteen Audio Quatro Wood loudspeakers here in our home. Yeah, we both fell head over heels for the speakers with the review being as positive as one could ever expect. Shortcomings?... Read More »

David W. Robinson, with John Tucker Winston Ma at his garden:  A portrait. Bellevue, WA, 2001. There seem to be a number of passings in 2016 already. Sure, that's always true, statistically. But this has already been a bad year for notable music figures dying…David Bowie, Prince, Natalie Cole, Glenn Frey, John Berry, Merle Haggard,... Read More »

"The more things change, the more they remain the same." - Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr What a load of crap! Sometimes, when things change, they seriously change, and things are nowhere nearly the same as they were! What I'm referring to here is my personal situation, where, in the space of a couple of months, we bought... Read More »

In which our hero meditates… Some plaudits where plaudits are due I have several items that have been accumulating in my notebook for a couple of months now. One was a notion for a full review that didn't need to be done, since another PF reviewer (Marshall Nack) did the main lifting; the others were candidates for... Read More »