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I have very little need for escapism. I live in a very peaceful area, surrounded by lakes, trees, and very little traffic. My listening room is in my basement, further isolated still. My marriage is a happy one, and we have no kids at home. Only the occasional visit from the parents, siblings, nieces, nephews,... Read More »

How best to present several of the outstanding orchestral masterpieces found in the Channel Classics catalog? My choice is to start with selections from the works of the great conductor, Iván Fischer, leading the Budapest Festival Orchestra. These are world class performances filled with deep intelligence and love for the music. Combined with the superb... Read More »

If you look at my past reviews, you will notice certain names show up on a regular basis, Wirewold is one of those names and the subject of this review. Wireworld is one of the best manufacturers of high end cabling in the audio business. They are fairly priced and their lower to mid-tier lines... Read More »

Grab onto the sides of your chairs so you don't fall over like I did when you hear this superb new transfer of Billie Holiday's Lady in Satin. The sound quality is simply gorgeous—alive, dynamic, transparent, with great accuracy of timbre in both instruments and voice. Billie Holiday is in the room with us, folks.... Read More »

One of the more commercially successful combinations in the audiophile sphere, over the past decade, has been the amplifier/digital to analog converter combo. You can now choose this combo component from dozens of brands from prices that vary very widely from a few hundred dollars for a basic, no-frills component, to models like the Boulder... Read More »

Would it be damning this cartridge with faint praise to simply call it nice? I hope not, because that's precisely what the entry-level model from Mobile Fidelity Electronics is. That's not to say inoffensive, as in competent but not particularly inspiring. The StudioTracker is, in fact, fairly sophisticated and affable for such an inexpensive example... Read More »

Six years have passed since Stage III Concepts introduced their Medusa Speaker Cable, which the brand distributor claimed to be the world's first with a vacuum dielectric. This was no ordinary wire product. I gave it a Writers Choice Award in 2016. The Cerberus Speaker Cable, a new top model in the vacuum line, followed... Read More »

Gonzalo Noque's recordings continue to mesmerize and delight me. I'm sitting at the moment just stunned having listened to a preview copy in DSD128 of the coming release of J.S. Bach's Complete Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV1014-1019, with Andoni Mercero (violin) and Alfonso Sebastian (harpsichord). My need to share something about this recording compels... Read More »

Concerned about vibrations in your home negatively impacting your vinyl listening experience? If you're like me, you want to extract every bit of performance out of your high fidelity music system, and eliminating unnecessary noise and vibrations is one way to do that.  In a previous system in a former home, I used A/V RoomService... Read More »

Sonic dynamite in a small package. Review By Maurice Jeffries With this article, Positive Feedback continues its content-sharing relationship with Enjoy the Music where Maurice Jefferies shares his thoughts on the SVS 3000 Micro Subwoofer. Dr. David W. Robinson, Editor-in-Chief I have a confession to make! Steven R. Rochlin, the Creative Director and guiding light at Enjoy the Music.com, had... Read More »

Whenever I see a Pure DSD transfer from HDTT, I know they've found an excellent source tape that is in great condition. And these are always wonderful to hear. Recently I started looking around for Ella Fitzgerald recordings at HDTT and I've found four in Pure DSD256 transfers that are well worth bringing to your... Read More »

Black on Black Red October with Western Electric 300Bs and U52s ampsandsound continues to surprise and delight me. Last year it was with the Rockwell, which showed me what a DHT amplifier built around a less well known tube could do. ampsandsound also rolled out the new Agartha and converted their entire lineup (with the... Read More »

Thus far in 2022, HDTT has given us three new and outstanding transfers of well known, and well loved, performances from the RCA Living Stereo catalog. To these, I've added several more of their excellent DXD/DSD256 Living Stereo reissues, plus a final reissue that RCA never released as a Living Stereo, but should have. They... Read More »

Now that Covid has settled down and the supply/demand challenges for components and parts have been shown some relief, it seems that I will have several opportunities to continue my review series for the latest and greatest in high end integrated amplifiers. Past reviews have included products from Pass Labs, D'Agostino, Devialet, T&A, Esoteric, Simaudio,... Read More »

This will be the best sounding digital reissue of Kind of Blue in your collection. There. I said it. No waffling around. This reissue is stunningly good. If you don't run and get it NOW, you will kick yourself for not having done so sooner once you finally hear it. Miles Davis - Kind of... Read More »

This issue of Notes on Recent Finds includes a mix of recordings found at NativeDSD. Several albums are from the quite remarkable Sono Luminus label, whose recordings (by engineer Daniel Shores) are supremely good. I've written about their albums in other articles. I'm including three more here. Also included is a delightful new recording from... Read More »

RAVEL: Orchestral Works, volume 2. The Philharmonia/Geoffrey Simon. Cala CACD 1005.  TT: 75.42 Rapsodie espagnole. Le gibet (orch. Goossens). Five O'Clock Foxtrot (orch. Palmer). Piano Concerto in G (Gwendolyn Mok, piano). Pavane pour une infante défunte. Pièce en forme de habañera (orch. Hoérée; Han de Vries, oboe). Daphnis et Chloé: Suite 2. I picked up... Read More »

The world of digital audio progresses through a perpetual cycle of change, with a continual improvement process occurring that allows a listener to experience a degree of sonic excellence that was only hinted at when the compact disc was first introduced. In some cases these changes are driven by increasing sophistication of chip sets or... Read More »

When something is not as advertised, I have no problem calling it out. So it was when music streaming came along. I read reviews, heard the demos, and my ears told me it was a step backwards, plus it was always crashing. I stayed on the sidelines until about four years ago when my DAC... Read More »