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Anyone who has ever looked into the hi-fi world in a little bit more intensive way knows that the arbitrary combination of well-reputed audio components does not necessarily lead to a guaranteed musical enjoyment. In the field of high-end audio, only very few manufacturers offer complete solutions—mainly those featuring a digital source. To my knowledge,... Read More »

The Higher End: HiFi Pig, Part-Time Audiophile, and Positive Feedback link-up In which our hero meditates… Those of you who have been reading Positive Feedback over the years are aware of the fact that from our beginning, 28 years ago, we have maintained friendly and open relationships with other publications. In fact, for quite a long... Read More »

The two newest entries in AudioQuest's DragonFly family of DACs are the Black ($99 USD) and the Red ($199 USD), with the core design approach appearing to me to be one of simplicity of use in accessing the majority of files one listens to on a daily basis, along with easy connectivity to a broad... Read More »

From time to time, an item is plucked from the mildewed bins of analog history by one of the reissue houses. Occasionally the dredging action strikes gold; most of the time it would have been best to leave the slumber undisturbed. A recently unearthed item is Once In Every Life featuring Johnny Hartman accompanied by... Read More »

A few times I've been lucky enough to review a product before the rest of the audio-press get their red-hot hands on it, but mostly I've been Gary-come-lately to the audio-party. I'm grateful of course, for opportunities to be the first to review a new offering; but while plotting how to get ahead of the... Read More »

So, we come to you with another cable review. Sorry, I know many of you believe that cables cannot have a sound or character—that is either they work or don't and any audible impact on the sound would suggest that something is broken… like my ears or inability to be swayed by hype or whatever…... Read More »

What we have from the outside is, as I mentioned, a pair of fairly conventional-looking narrow-baffle towers. Each speaker stands 39 inches in height (not including its spiked outriggers) and measures just under eight inches in width. The overall footprint is quite reasonable, with a depth of 10.75 inches, so these shouldn’t be too hard to place in a room of normal dimensions.

Fostex has a long history in the audio business. The company was founded in 1973, but its parent company Foster Electric Co., Ltd was formed way back in 1949. The company was originally a mass producer of OEM speaker and transducer products, but broke into pro and hi-fi facing mini monitors in 1978 with the Fostex 6301B and then into the growing category of home recording with a line of multitrack recording devices in ‘81.

The $25,000 USD gold, and Ferrari-red, solid-state integrated amplifier from Switzerland exuded raw sex appeal as it sat in my listening room oozing quality. With it’s staggeringly addictive color scheme (a point of opinion, and contention I know), muscular casework and that rubbery, nubby-feeling volume Pleasure Control for tactile feedback, the darTZeel CTH-8550 could be a bit much for some people at times, but oh baby was it posh.

How many Simolians do you have to part with these days to get good sound? I mean, really? Is it even possible, or just a frustrating pipe dream?

That seems to have been Topic A in 2016, continuing hot on the heels of the previous year and probably going all the way back to Thomas Edison wrapping a sheet of tin foil around a grooved metal cylinder.

As I write this review, Chicano Batman takes the stage in the blaring sun of the Coachella Valley for the second time—two years ago, some had commented on how absurd it seemed that this Los Angeles-based tropical soul band hadn't played the iconic festival. Now, on the heels of hearing their third full length album, Freedom... Read More »

Our Partner in Europe, Dirk Sommer of HIFI Statement, offers a plethora of images from Day 1 of the High End Munich 2017 show by HIFI Statement's photographer Helmut Baumgartner... who covered the whole show, as every year, on the first day. Here's the link to 614 pictures: http://www.hifistatement.net/event/item/2014-high-end-2017-messerundgang-mit-helmut-baumgartner

Soundsmith Zephyer MIMC Star Cartridge The world's best turntables use Soundsmith because we've been designing and hand-building the world's best phono cartridges for more than thirty years. It is a very clear statement. Placing it on top of company's home page can seem bit megalomaniac. Peter Ledermann though, the director and chief engineer of Soundsmith,... Read More »

The Audia Flight Strumento n°1 mk2 Preamp Many audiophiles believe that they can get along without any preamplifier in these digital times. However, I do not share this point of view: To me a preamplifier is an indispensable partner that, by the way, also should have sufficient balanced inputs. Yet, the Audia Flight does not... Read More »

I'll save you the trouble and time of skipping the discussion and jumping directly to the conclusions for the low down on the van den Hul Colibri Stradivarius XGW Stradivarius cartridge. For the record, A.J. (short for Aalt Jouk) van den Hul's latest creation is hands down one of the finest transducers to pass through... Read More »

Dateline: Westin Hotel, Rosemont, Ill., April 21-23rd, 2017 AXPONA! I get a serious kick out of listening to exotic, cost-no-object systems. In fact, I enjoy them so much, it's hard to tear myself away. Where reality and common sense meet, its clear I have little business in those rooms other than to experience some of the finest audio this... Read More »

Einsam Keit. Schumann Lieder. Mathias Goerne, baritone, Markus Hinterhäuser, piano. Harmonia Mundi HMM 902243.  Coming to Matthias Goerne without expectations, which I'll concede is almost impossible, we are struck by the unique combination of weight and lyricism in his voice. Paralleled by the same quality in the piano. The perfect baritone can do this but... Read More »

Nothing beats the convenience of digital music. For many years, I have stored and played back digital music (before the MP3) because of how easy it was. I loved having a huge collection of music just to play at the tip of my fingertips. Not only that, but it caused a surge of new music... Read More »

Jack Bybee's iQSE or internal Quantum Signal Enhancer (iQSE) differs from the AC Purifiers I wrote about last month. As you'd expect the signal from your component runs through the AC Purifiers. It is with some bother I note no signal passes through the iQSE, it neither plugs into anything nor does anything plug into... Read More »