Loading...

Onwards to Part the Third of my Pacific Audio Fest 2022 Photo Essay and Audio Oasis! Awards report... Genesis/Merrill Audio In the Genesis/Merrill Audio space It's hard to know what to say about Gary Koh's good-sized Genesis room, featuring Merrill Wettasinghe's very special next-generation (MX) amplification from Merrill Audio. There was so much really unique... Read More »

The ocean swells of the recent controversy about Mobile Fidelity and its unannounced (until now) use of DSD256 continue to roil, whether useful or not. Greg Weaver and I had a long conversation about this, provenance, processing, and the (to my mind) vital role that DSD256 has to play in the future of analog LP... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor with some very fine coffee. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2015. (Photograph by Lila Ritsema.) Time to continue my Pacific Audio Fest 2022 Audio Oasis! Awards. Part the Second, then...onwards! Parasound/Innuos/Marantz/Dr. Feickert/Norstone/Straight Wire/KEF Here's an eyeful of an earful of a fine-sounding room… The Parasound/Innuos/KEF/etc. room featured some designs from companies that I knew…JC... Read More »

Did you happen to know that one of Planet Earth's great writers, Garrett Hongo is also a music lover and audiophile?  That's right, Garrett Hongo is one of us. Garrett has written over thirty works in over seventy publications, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1988 for The River of Heaven,... Read More »

Robinson reflecting… (portrait by John Robinson; image processing by Ye Olde Editor) Prologue… At long last, after 2.5 years of pandemic interruption and scheduling conflicts, I was finally able to get to an audio show…and not a moment too soon. The Pacific Audio Fest was held from July 29-31 in SeaTac, WA, at the Hilton... Read More »

A special Positive Feedback guest editorial from John Marks, J.D. and James Tuomy, AES John Marks has been a longtime audio friend of mine, and a respected member of audiophile recording and loudspeaker design community. He recently approached me to publish a technical paper that he and James Tuomy had written regarding proposed modifications to the... Read More »

In the early days of our hobby, one reviewer reigned supreme. From his first "test report," in 1957, until his retirement in 1998, Julian Hirsch is said to have written— either as himself, or as Hirsch-Houck Laboratories—some 4000 "laboratory test reports" on the hi-fi equipment of his time. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Hirsch). All of those were, reminiscent of... Read More »

Chris Sommovigo, sharing a beer with me at AXPONA 2019 (Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) Chris Sommovigo passed away at his home in Atlanta, Georgia, on Monday, August 15, 2022. Another really good man gone to glory. Apparently, Chris came home an hour early on the day that he died, complaining that... Read More »

Jim Merod: a self-portrait. Sony's LSPX-S3 glass sound speaker can be regarded as a leaner, no less enjoyable sonic anomaly which the paradigm-setting Harmon Kardon three-unit stereo playback device, a decade or so back, brought the convenience of music's joyful digital miniaturization. This inexpensive, highly-compatible audio triumph depends not so much on Bluetooth flexibility, but... Read More »

Dr. David contemplating the mysteries of Life. Happy Valley, OR, 2018 (Photograph by John Robinson; image processing by Ye Olde Editor) Last month's reflection upon the good things happening at Gold Note in Italy concentrated on some of their key people, as profiled on their YouTube channel. It was good stuff, people being the most... Read More »

Sensitivity First, I measured the sensitivity of the Audeze CRBN, comparing it to the Stax 007. My headphone measurement instrument is the Mini DSP "Ears," which is far from a standard. However, using my ACO Pacific SPL calibrator, I was able to calibrate the Mini DSP for SPL at 1kHz within about a dB, I... Read More »

E-in-C Robinson photographing at the Kronos factory, Montreal, 2022 (photograph by Bill Parish; image processing by Robinson) If you've been following my comments since last February, you're well aware of the fact that I have been repeatedly stating my extremely pleased astonishment at Louis Desjardins' Discovery Turntable System. So have others in our creative community.... Read More »

As you probably know, I'm not just a writer and a long-time audiophile (I and my friends call ourselves "HiFi Crazies"), but a manufacturer of High-End audio cables, originally XLO, now RSX. As such, to some of our HiFi brethren, that automatically makes me and anything I might say suspect. They insist—often based more on... Read More »

At the 18th High Fidelity Anniversary In the past, before I started to work as a journalist, I heard several times from one of the audio distributors that audio magazines were "leeches" and "parasites." He said it deadly serious and pissed off. Which did not prevent him from partying, having fun, laughing and joking with... Read More »

Written by Tom Methans While browsing around Steve Guttenberg's The Audiophiliac channel on YouTube, I came across several videos featuring Devon Turnbull, a multi-talented audio engineer and former clothing and graphic designer and graffiti artist, who now runs a small audio company in Brooklyn called Ojas (Devon's original graffiti pen name pronounced with the same "j" as in jazz... Read More »

As a reminder to Positive Feedback readers, PF has some very fine content-sharing relationships with a handful of fine audiophile publications. Among this fraternity of online magazines is Copper Magazine, the journal of PS Audio, Paul McGowan's audiophile company. Frank Doris is the current Editor there, and is a good friend, respected due to his many years in... Read More »

Dirk Sommer, Birgit Hammer (photography). This review is quite unusual: Audioquest's "LowZ/Noise-Dissipation" mains power technology, implemented in cables and power conditioners, which has recently received the Statement in High Fidelity award, has to show in the CSM mastering studio whether it has there just as positive an influence on the sound as in a HiFi... Read More »

  Ye Olde Editor, 2022: a portrait in Ink Outline (photograph by John Robinson; image processing by Ye Olde himself). A Study in Synergy There's that word again. As defined online by Oxford Languages, synergy is "the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater... Read More »

Greetings friends, I hope you are doing well! Today's article is about the new Audio Note (UK) Meishu Phono Silver Tonmeister 300B single-ended-triode (SET) integrated amplifier (MSRP $19,300.00 USD, website link HERE). Long time readers know I have a special fondness for high-performance integrated amplifiers, as they represent what I consider to be the value... Read More »