Loading...

Late last year, I had a tremendous review opportunity that focused on ProJect's The Classic turntable; unbeknownst to me, the review unit arrived as the heavily upgraded Superpack SB edition. Which, along with electronic speed control and other really nice goodies thrown in, also came with a Sumiko Blue Point No. 2 cartridge attached to... Read More »

Saturday mornings I'm at the Greenmarket early and later I make my way over to Academy Records, my favorite music retailer. While perusing the bins recently, I stumbled upon Jazz Ballets from Broadway, an early stereo LP from 1958 (Warner Bros BS 1240). The title won't ring a bell for many people, but it was... Read More »

Fergus Henderson—the chef who's the reason the hip restaurant around the corner from you serves bone marrow, sweetbreads, and other animal bits—opens his seminal cookbook Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking, with a terse description of lunch at Sweetings. When you order the smoked eel at the bar of this London seafood... Read More »

As I began listening to the Gingko ARCHs the many audio tweaks I've tried over the years ran through my mind. The more I thought about it virtually every system I've heard, no matter price or size, included some sort of accessory I would—at least loosely—label as a tweak, an accessory that can improve the... Read More »

German loudspeaker manufacturer Audio Physic has a long and storied history of innovation. From the employment of side-mounted woofers and narrow baffles featured throughout its loudspeaker lines, to coaxial, string-suspended midrange / tweeter drivers utilized in the legacy Kronos and Caldera II models, and even to the promotion of radical nearfield-based placement recommendations, Audio Physic... Read More »

I've been using JPLAY as my go-to computer-based music player/streamer for the last couple of years—it's without a doubt the very best bang-for-your-buck improvement for use with any PC music playback system. In my review of the Sonore microRendu last year, I found that music via my PC with JPLAY came darn close to matching... Read More »

I think of Shunyata Research as an investigative research center for signal and power transmission. And I suspect its principal scientist, Caelin Gabriel, has a lot of fun digging into how electricity works, down to the quantum level. After all, Gabriel spent his early career with the NSA, designing military systems to acquire extremely low-level... Read More »

I told a knowledgeable audio friend that I was writing about Q Acoustics speakers, and he didn't know the brand, so he looked it up. He saw online that the 3050 floorstanders I was to review cost $700. "This is bargain-basement stuff," he said. "Why is Positive Feedback getting you to review them?" Why do... Read More »

I wonder if Geoff Merrigan, the owner and designer of the British company TELLURIUM Q is having nightmares? The question seems to me to be all the more justified, since both him and his company have roots in the pro world, that is, one set on functionality and utilitarianism and reluctant to any experiments. The experiments... Read More »

At the last Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, a conversation took place between Chris Morris of Bluebird Music (Spendor's North American distributor, based in Canada) and PF's Dave Clark regarding Spendor's newest and most affordable line of loudspeakers. The A2 and A4 Models, priced at $2395 and $3195 USD, would offer Spendor's renowned sound at a... Read More »

I'm going to start off by saying that I feel like I have been on a digital journey during the process of reviewing the Mojo Audio Déjà vu Music Server. I encourage all who are interested in the specs and tweaks for the Déjà vu Music Server to visit the Mojo Audio website and read... Read More »

We hold these audio Truths to be self-evident…until we don't. There are times when I feel that everything ever said or published about audio is only created so that people can have a good time arguing. One premise, however, is rarely challenged: system synergy. Plenty of manufacturers posit that it only makes sense to purchase matching components from... Read More »

You know how one thing leads to another. Since I am a huge fan of CH Precision, having acquired a whole system of their components, when I found out they market audio cables, I soon reviewed their Reference line (HERE). Once again, I was taken and acquired the demo set. Turns out the CH cables... Read More »

This article will be a departure from my normal format for reviewing audio components. The Tekton Design Double Impact speakers came to me by way of Steve Lefkowicz's personal pair. Steve and Rosina put the word out that they needed space in their living room to accommodate the holidays. Since we are only separated by... Read More »

One of the things I have learned to expect and appreciate in my search for high-value, lower-cost equipment is that as the price goes down the differences between gear increase, and the need to understand your biases and preferences becomes more important as you will have to accept certain compromises. As I have listened to... Read More »

What do you cleverly call a company that has at its core value the maximum extraction of auditory information from any given signal? LessLoss. Get it? Less Loss. Having written and opined about Louis Motek's (full name Liudas Motekaitis) ingenious designs many times over the past ten, fifteen years, I have come to realize that in... Read More »

Having covered audio shows for many decades now, I have learned to take it with a pinch of salt when I hear exhibitors bandy about words like "revolutionary", "game changer", and "new generation" in trying to get you to focus on their products. However, what was different as I started my coverage of TAVES in... Read More »

Just about ten years ago, when I first started writing the Neoteric Listener column for Positive Feedback, editors Dave and Carol Clark invited me to their home. At the time, the heart of their system featured the substantial Clayton Audio mono blocks and the well-regarded Reimer speakers. Reflecting on my then modest Arcam and Tannoy... Read More »

I first heard the Vanatoo Transparent Zero (T0) speakers at the Los Angeles Audio Show last year and was immediately smitten. The sound quality I was hearing from speakers—available at an introductory price of $299 (now $359)—had me scratching my head wondering how so much could cost so little. Add to that 2 x 48... Read More »