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Stein Music of Germany has been known in these pages as the source for unique and exciting accessories that advance room treatment, amplifier performance, power supply distribution, power cords, turntable performance and more. We knew they were big into loudspeakers and electronics, though few made it to these shores. Time all that changed! Now available... Read More »

Getting closer to the music etched into your LP's grooves. Review By Tom Lyle With this article, Positive Feedback begins its content-sharing relationship with Enjoy the Music. Tom Lyle, who used to write for PF in former years, shares his thoughts about the Etsuro Urushi cartridge. Read, and learn.... Dr. David W. Robinson, Editor-in-Chief It was about a year... Read More »

First, a quick recap for readers who missed the initial installment of this two-part review. (HERE). Very early on in the course of the Fuuga review I realized that the cartridge's relatively high mass and low compliance and my reference VPI 3D printed tonearm's 10-gram effective mass weren't exactly a match made in heaven. Not... Read More »

The enormous WM-4 FINKTEAM loudspeakers caused a lot of confusion among people during the High End 2018 exhibition  in Munich. Looking at them and not knowing what it was all about, it was hard to say why, however. They did look a little different than most loudspeakers at the exhibition, but they still seemed to... Read More »

It’s here! Three decades in the making, and revisiting every electromechanical and musically natural design known to the House of Cardas, has led to the Cardas Clear Beyond Interconnects. With the XL Power Cord and the Clear Beyond Phono Cable covered by me in previous PF reviews, the bigger, extraordinary interconnects are now up to... Read More »

When it comes to room acoustics, size matters. The axiom that smaller listening rooms lead to larger acoustical challenges holds true in my experience. Room-mode resonances, which greatly affect bass response, generally manifest higher in frequency in small rooms, leading to coloration, not just in the bass, but further up into the midrange. Those of... Read More »

Digital Audio Converters (DAC), which take the carefully crafted digital signal and convert it to analog, mostly matured between five and ten years ago. Companies like DCS, Playback Designs, Theta, and more, pushed the chip manufacturers to develop extraordinarily complex and powerful designs, and finally have nearly eliminated jitter and other innate problems. Musicality improved... Read More »

If you have never heard of Kanto or their products don't feel bad. "Kanto was founded in January of 2007. The founders had a vision to build quality products with style—and offer excellent value to customers throughout their life cycle. Many years designing and manufacturing OEM products for large consumer electronics companies gave them the... Read More »

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 »

One of the many reasons why I love the audiophile hobby so much is that it always affords me so many avenues to learn something new and interesting. For example, take the need to "ground" all your audio components. On the surface, grounding may seem like a boring concept. However, if you dig beneath the... Read More »

  The LA4  Line Amplifier is a linestage preamp introduced by Benchmark Media Systems in 2018. Priced at a very competitive $2495 USD, the small, squarish LA4 comes securely packaged, and includes a power cord, 12V trigger cable, and a manual complete with test reports. The review LA4 was furnished with the optional remote (add... Read More »

'Twas the week before Christmas when Nick Doshi and Anthony Chiarella dropped by bringing seasonal cheer in the form of the Doshi Phono Stage V3.0. While it was warming up, I took the opportunity to bring them up to speed on my current configuration: all CH Precision components, including the CH P1 phono stage. Nick... Read More »

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 »

Though more and more phono stages contain moving coil facilities, many do not. From McIntosh to Sony, preamps are available with only moving magnet amplification. Most preamps that have MC on board, have only one input. If you own two tables with MC cartridges on board, you have to plug and unplug to enjoy the... Read More »

I've had the honor of having experienced the PureAudioProject "Trio" system for a while now, and it is one of the most eye-opening experiences I have in a long time. I have reviewed lots of speaker systems as well as other ancillary systems, but none of them have captured the essence of the music like... Read More »

This time we got for a review the anti-vibration feet of the German company Finite Elemente, Ceraball and Cerabase Classic models. This brand is one of the precursors among specialized firms fighting against unwanted vibrations, which with these products returns to the market after a few years absence. We published an interview with the current... Read More »

At my old place, I had a plethora of audio-related problems, not the least of which was with AC power. An early 80s house, it was reasonably well built, but almost everything in the home was contractor grade, and not everything employed the best construction practices. I first noticed I had an issue when my... Read More »

Just when you would figure John Grado would take some time off with his vivacious wife and spend time at their pied-à-terre in Paris, (if they have one, they should go there!), Grado's new and improved creations keep rolling in. With the improvements wrought by balanced armatures to IEM's and a few other engineering tweaks, the improved... Read More »

It Even Makes Julienne Fries It was a golden age for Television, or perhaps commercials in the 1960s. The Ronco Veg-O-Matic hit the market, promising  to ease the life homemakers everywhere. This food slicer did it all; its catch-phrase, "It slices! It dices! It even makes julienne fries!" became the go-to reference for multi-function devices... Read More »