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Dean Waters: portrait with a cigar. SeaTac, WA, Pacific Audio Fest, 2023 For the last few months, I've been listening to and delighting in a pair of AGD Duet monoblock amplifiers. These are the newest addition to the AGD product line, and are rated for a very solid 150W @ 8 Ohms (300W @ 4... Read More »

Over my life as an audiophile, I've had three individual instances where I was absolutely certain beyond doubt that the consequences of my actions would in no time send me rocketing down the highway to high-end audio hell. The first came over a decade ago when I followed the advice I'd gotten from another audio... Read More »

Like a god of destruction and rebirth, the internet streamer obliterates the accumulated dross of the audiophile world with one hand, while bestowing untold musical riches with the other. All at no charge. Dump your tables, tubes, and tuners into the ocean. Gift your album caravan to a grateful acolyte who can be dazzled by... Read More »

Audiophile tweaks; you can either love them or hate them, but if you are a passionate audiophile, they are difficult to ignore. Sure, they can be controversial, and in a few cases, they can even be outright frauds with claims that border on the ludicrous. However, in my experience, if you look long and hard... Read More »

This review has had probably the longest gestation period of any review I've ever done. I've had the Tekton Perfect SET 15 loudspeakers in my possession for three years already. In fact, I already gave them a Writer's Choice award in 2021. Why the long wait? As explained in previous articles, much of the first... Read More »

The PS Audio Aspen FR10 Loudspeakers (photo courtesy of PS Audio) The "P" in PS Audio, a leading manufacturer of high-end stereo equipment, Paul McGowan is renowned for his informative and easy-going newsletters and YouTube videos with over 185,000 subscribers. As a self-taught analog electronics engineer, he co-founded the company with Stan Warren in 1973,... Read More »

A while back I found myself the new custodian of some excellent prototype speakers. I'd heard the Communique floorstander at several Colorado Audio Society listening sessions and really enjoyed this speaker. Built by MG Audio Design, which was mainly a cable company at the time, (Positive Feedback's own Pete Davey reviewed their Planus speaker and... Read More »

Dean Waters at the Pacific Audio Fest, 2023: a portrait with cigar (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) The Tambaqui from Mola Mola represents the finest in high end DACs available for the serious audiophile who's looking for a no-compromise solution for digital-to-analog bliss. I've been listening to the Tambaqui for the last... Read More »

Fifty years ago SAE hit the market with its first amplifier, the venerable MK 1. A 60-watt per channel affair that stunned the audio world and received rave reviews by none other than J. Gordon Holt when he stated that under most conditions it was the best sounding solid-state gear he had ever heard. Big... Read More »

As widely noted, for the second year in a row in 2023, vinyl record sales topped compact disc sales in the U.S.—this time by a whopping $43 million, or about six million more than total CD sales last year (popsci.com). This point recently hit home personally when my wife, Belle, said that her hipster boss... Read More »

I'm constantly on social media, quite often for audio-related purposes. And I'd seen teasers for months highlighting the ongoing development of Vera-Fi Audio's SnubWay Noise Defender, or more simply, SnubWay. The posts seemed to mostly focus on different variations of the case design, with only snippets of information regarding the actual function of SnubWay. With... Read More »

As many years as I have been in this hobby, within the last few I have become more and more intolerant of the exaggerated claims of expensive tweaks by some manufacturers. You can throw wire and cable into this debate, but that is a subject for another day. If one is trying to eke out... Read More »

Dean Waters at Pacific Audio Fest 2023: a portrait (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) The Qln Signature Series, Fifth Generation, front view with magnetically attached grill cover For the last several weeks I've been gleefully enjoying listening to and marveling at the 5th generation Signature series speakers from Qln. These are 2-way... Read More »

My original review of the Vanguard Caldera 10 subwoofer earlier this year was nothing short of an all out rave, and deservedly so! I know this is beginning to sound like the proverbial broken record, but how Vera-Fi Audio's Mark Schifter and his partner Viet Nguyen can design and manufacture a superb unit like this... Read More »

  In my recent review of the Puron AC Power Conditioners, I was struck by the abundance of amazing and relatively inexpensive enhancements available to substantially improve the performance of your audio and video systems. Those include devices and accessories of every make and manner that, based on their outward appearance, would seem incapable of... Read More »

The brochure included with the XACT S1 music server hammered on the point again and again. Digital that doesn't sound like digital. More like vinyl. The single-minded focus caused me to reflect on the scene and our recent history. What began with Perfect Sound Forever in 1983 is now snubbed in 2024. The new standard... Read More »

The Zesto Audio Andros Spirit Phonostage (image courtesy of Zesto Audio) The new Zesto Audio Andros Spirit Phonostage is an inexpensive wonder. It is so precisely cut from the same cloth as the Andros II and Deluxe II, all tubes all the time, that the audiophile will forget the small differences and accept the Spirit... Read More »

Dean Waters at Pacific Audio Fest 2023: A Portrait with a Cigar. (Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson)  About four months ago I received a Mola-Mola Tambaqui DAC and a Mola-Mola Perca stereo amplifier from Bill Parish at GTT Audio, and I've been using them as my daily-driver since then with much glee... Read More »

Bella Sound is the brain child of Michael Vice. Educated at UC Berkeley and Stanford in Physics and Electrical Engineering, Mike has poured his decades of experience and over 40 patents into his unique designs. Bella Sound's products include amplifiers, a power conditioner, and power cords, all based on Mike's conceptually novel approach, and married... Read More »