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Hecho a Mano When I first visited the Fono Acustica site, my attention was drawn to the repeated use of the words artisanal and hand-crafted. These are loaded words to the contemporary ear. As we move from the first machine age into the age of intelligent machines, they stimulate nostalgia for a bygone time when... Read More »

Mogwai, As the Love Continues Like most popular art forms, music is over-classified. When an artistic medium is overly distilled through endless descriptions, categories, names, and titles, the magic is also seemingly stripped from it. The ethereal music of Mogwai, the ever-evolving Scottish band, is an unfortunate victim of these attempts to classify rather than... Read More »

The Silence Between, Pieter van Loenen, violin, and Tobias Borsboom, piano, TRPTK (2021, DSD256, DXD) HERE The Silence Between is a marvelously transparent recording of superb performances of five engagingly melodic, tonal 20th century works. (Well, almost. The Debussy piece comes from 1890 but clearly looks forward to the next century.) In this brilliant recording,... Read More »

Reboots are everywhere these days, and it's easy to understand why. Capitalizing on existing goodwill and warm nostalgia is a surefire strategy for attracting an instant audience. My generation especially is eating it up. I mean, come on, who isn't binge watching those over-the-hill karate kids Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence still trading kicks in... Read More »

Within the audio hobby, there is an imaginary divide between companies that produce high-end components and others that create products meant to fill consumer demand at a price point. This demarcation line can be difficult to cross over, as companies may not possess the skills, focus, or resources needed to develop products that appeal to... Read More »

HASSE: Il Tigrane: Overture and Arias; VIVALDI: Il Tigrane: Arias; GLUCK: Il Tigrane: Arias. Isabel Bayrakdarian, soprano; Kansas City Symphony Orchestra/Constantine Orbelian. Delos DE 3591.  TT: 64.06. Downloads: Amazon.com (mp3); boxset.me (FLAC); qobuz.com (various formats) Did you know about this Cleopatra? I certainly didn't. Cleopatra of Pontus married King Tigranes the Great (Tigranes II) of Armenia, in... Read More »

Most diehard audiophiles believe the best system you can build will have the following components: a turntable, phono stage/preamp, and an amplifier. Keep it simple, keep it analog, and with the right component selection, the result is a system that sounds effortless and realistic in a way that a digital based system can never sound.... Read More »

While I was evaluating AGD Productions' "The Audion" Amplifier (HERE), there was a rumor that AGD Productions was going to release a new flagship monoblock amplifier. This new amplifier would be based off a more powerful GaN Tube, a technology unique to AGD that utilizes state of the art Gallium Nitride transistors, and offer enough... Read More »

World Premier! The new SOTA sound allows music to become tactile. Review By Ron Nagle With this article, Positive Feedback continues its content-sharing relationship with Enjoy the Music Ron Nagle shares his thoughts on the SOTA Nova VI Vinyl LP Turntable. Dr. David W. Robinson, Editor-in-Chief There was a time when my school shoes wore out; my mom... Read More »

At the peak of his career, Chesney "Chet" Baker represented the epitome of jazz cool, and along with the likes of Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Gerry Mulligan, and Stan Getz was one of the principal figures of the "West Coast Jazz" movement centered between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Baker relished living the fast life,... Read More »

Light In The Attic Records (LITA) is a record label based in Seattle that has a certain knack for the unconventional, and has specialized over the last couple of decades in reissuing obscure, underrepresented, and sometimes virtually unknown artists. With the intent of bringing that unknown gem of an album, or perhaps a lesser-known artists'... Read More »

In December of 2020, Clarus Cable released the Coda DAC/headphone amplifier ($300), giving the audiophile on-the-go a new and elevated option for taking music everywhere. Utilizing the ESS Professional Series SABRE DAC, the CODA plugs directly into your laptop via USB-A, and features a 3.5mm headphone jack on the other end. Inside the solidly-constructed device... Read More »

Craft Recordings completes their 50th anniversary celebration of the founding of Creedence Clearwater Revival with new LP reissues of the band's final two albums, Pendulum and Mardi Gras. 1970's Pendulum—which was CCR's second album release that year (Cosmo's Factory streeted only months earlier in July)—was recorded in a month in November, and was released only... Read More »

Advocacy for Neutrality Last year I came across several articles on high-end sites purporting to address, What is good sound? Most veered off to the vague and vapid, concluding, whatever floats your boat is good. Has it come to this? I know long-established standards smacking of elitism and privilege are under siege and youthful disruption... Read More »

I've long been a fan of both Tube amplifiers and Class D amplifiers, and here, finally, I get to check out their love child. Is it an illicit union, a chimera, or something completely new and wondrous to hear? I think a little history is in order. I was solidly in the solid-state camp long... Read More »

I was really impressed by the Pass Labs XP-12 line-level preamplifier that I wrote about in Positive Feedback Issue 111 (HERE), and I have been looking forward to telling you about my time with its intended phono preamplifier partner, the Pass Labs XP-17. Given that Nelson Pass and Wayne Colburn both use Tannoy 15-inch dual... Read More »

I've talked here at intervals over the last couple of years about a variety of system enhancements I've employed at my home with the goal of improving system performance, reducing noise, and increasing my ability to see through more clearly to the music I enjoy. It's really shocking how seemingly simple fixes like vibration reduction... Read More »

the art of listening… for art's sake – the art of listening to music including hi-res audio, MQA, DSD and 5.1 surround sound A recent product from Starke Sound in Gardena, California is called VLOT. I still don't know what the VLOT acronym is supposed to stand for. So I'll take a stab at it, ummm….Verisimilar Layered Orthogonal Trajectories... Read More »

Years ago as news editor for the Cyber Boxing Zone, I witnessed the special veneration that insiders held for the late Emanuel Steward, a boxing trainer who headed Detroit's famous Kronk Gym and transformed the careers of world champions like Lennox Lewis, Wladimir Klitschko, and Tommy Hearns. Then after signing into my first AXPONA show... Read More »