November - December 2020 Archives - Positive Feedback

Cat Stevens - A Classic LP Reimagined

Robert S. Youman — Thu, 24 Dec 2020 23:19:23 +0000

Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Tea For The Tillerman 2, Island Records (33 RPM LP) At 72 years old, Yusuf Islam continues to entertain and delight his fans. Born Steven Demetra Georgio in 1948 in London, England, he took the stage name of Cat Stevens in 1966 before turning to Islam in 1977 and assuming his current name. He... Read More »

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Alt-USB Cables: The Missing Ear Candy

Bruce Kinch — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 17:57:20 +0000

Yes, I know. It's traditional to cite recordings used in an equipment review (and illustrate them with the cover art), but featuring even some of the music that used to evaluate four very different USB cables meant the review would run far too long. Ultimately, I had to cut all the window dressing. You can... Read More »

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Clarus Duet Power Conditioner

Will Wright — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 21:53:07 +0000

Power is king. Throughout my years in audio this one thing has become clear. Power supply quality shapes the sound of a component. In order to achieve that quality, a power supply must be fed well, hence the plethora of aftermarket power cables and conditioners. The subject of this review, the Clarus Duet purports to... Read More »

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A Q&A with Estelon - A Decade of Loudspeaker Excellence

Michael Zisserson — Sun, 20 Dec 2020 19:47:33 +0000

The Estonian based loudspeaker company, Estelon, has helped shape the past decade of top-tier loudspeakers. To celebrate their tenth anniversary, Estelon has made significant updates to six of their loudspeakers in the X and Y series, details HERE and have released ten, special edition pairs of their Forza loudspeaker HERE. These updates represent ten years... Read More »

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Quickies: Minimum Reviews for Maximum Audiophiles

Robert H. Levi — Sun, 20 Dec 2020 03:46:45 +0000

I have three great products to bring to your attention at the end of 2020. Listen up! Amazing Vacuum Tube Alert: GE 6189 (12AU7) JAN NOS The military/industrial NOS GE 6189 tube is a premium quality 12AU7 tube with an added internal helical wire that strengthens the grid structure and dampens vibration and noise. This... Read More »

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ALT-USB: Cables Curious, Unique, Magic, and Lush

Bruce Kinch — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 01:49:01 +0000

Seriously? A review of four idiosyncratic USB cables? Didn't some sage audio scribe opine back in the MP-3 days that USB meant "Usually Sounds Bad"? Well, audiophiles have since embraced first High-Res downloads, and then streaming services like Tidal and Qobuz. With the result that getting the best sound from file-based audio often depends on... Read More »

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Tim de Paravicini - The Passing of a True Giant in the Audio Industry

Editors at Positive Feedback — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 23:21:47 +0000

Photograph by David W. Robinson, copyright © 2020, all rights reserved. Photograph may not be used or republished without the express written consent of the artist. It is with deep sorrow that I report that legendary audio designer Tim de Paravicini passed away on December 17 in Japan, at age 75. The cause of death... Read More »

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Astell&Kern SR25 - Incredible Transparency Weds Wondrous Musicality!

Kermit Heartsong — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 21:34:34 +0000

In the late 1990's, prior to Apple's creation of the iPod, the company, IRIVER, had been manufacturing consumer electronic products and some of the first portable music players in the world. Music players that were capable of both lossy and CD-quality music playback. For the next twenty plus years IRIVER would continue to produce portable... Read More »

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The Volti Audio Razz Loudspeaker

Gary L Beard — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 21:08:44 +0000

In 2018, Volti Audio's Greg Roberts offered me the opportunity to review his wonderful Rival Loudspeakers (HERE) I'd never heard a horn speaker in my home, and the Rival was somewhat of a dynamic revelation. Like the Rival, the new Volti Audio Razz is also a hybrid horn / bass reflex loudspeaker, designed by Mr.... Read More »

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Thöress EHT Amplifiers

Wojciech Pacuła — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 20:50:39 +0000

Hybrid a thing made by combining two different elements; in biology: the offspring of two plants or animals of different species or varieties; a mythical creature being a combination of existing animal, such as griffin; […] If there was an audio award that would be given to products for their design, the Thöress brand would... Read More »

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Impressions: Robinson's Brutus Awards for 2020, Part the First

David W. Robinson — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 00:18:10 +0000

Ye Olde Editor in days collegiate, presenting the goods. Corvallis, OR, 1972 (photograph by Dr. John Hull) Thoughts at this end of the first year of the pandemic… Once again, yes, once again it's time for my Brutus Awards. This time, the 2020 edition…a year that will live in infamy. Our first major pandemic in... Read More »

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High End Head Scratchers: Why You Need Fancy Wires for Your Subs

Marshall Nack — Sat, 12 Dec 2020 19:13:39 +0000

This curious tale of low-end wires in a very high-end system to be filed in the "Things I Can't Explain" folder, is directed at keen observers with highly resolving, neutral systems. Not everyone will relate. Back in 2011, when I had installed the YG Acoustics Anat Studio speakers, my dealer gave me a spiel about... Read More »

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Devialet D-Premier Upgrade to Expert 250 Pro

Arnis Balgalvis — Fri, 11 Dec 2020 23:17:59 +0000

The Devialet D-Premier is sure to go down in audio history as a game changer. When it was introduced in 2010, little did we know that the D-Premier would alter the integrated amplifier landscape forever by redefining the concept of what an integrated amplifier is. Up to that point, an integrated amplifier had consisted of... Read More »

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FiiO Q3 - A Powerful, Little Musical Engine!

Kermit Heartsong — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 18:43:35 +0000

If you think about it, every musical instrument has its birth, grows its shape, as it chooses its skin—metal, wood, glass, reeds—and develops its own unique tone / timbre. Though there are various families—woodwinds, brass, strings, keyboard, idiophones, friction instruments, and percussion—that share, within families, similar to overlapping voices. And there are literally hundreds of... Read More »

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Kimber Kable Naked Interconnects

Editors at Positive Feedback — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 21:10:26 +0000

Let's go skinny dipping... with an impressive leap in cabling technology! Review By Paul L. Schumann With this article, Positive Feedback continues its content-sharing relationship with Enjoy the Music. Paul L. Schumann shares his thoughts on the Kimber Kable Naked Interconnects. Dr. David W. Robinson, Editor-in-Chief Ok, we've all done it. We've swum in the water in our... Read More »

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Craft Recordings' Record Store Day 2020 LPs

Tom Gibbs — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 20:59:39 +0000

Record Store Day—or RSD as it's commonly known among aficionados—typically takes place twice a year, generally around April and October. RSD piques the interest of every vinyl hound in the US—and worldwide, for that matter—and generally brings a slate of releases that are widely varied in approach from record label to record label. Some labels... Read More »

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Andover Audio Model-One Turntable Music System

Michael Corsentino — Sat, 05 Dec 2020 19:20:33 +0000

With their Model-One Turntable Music System, MA based Andover Audio has achieved the seemingly impossible by creating a stylish all in one turntable, speaker, DAC, amp, and Bluetooth enabled preamp combination that even picky audiophiles like me can easily fall in love with. Until now all in one turntable solutions, think Crosley, have largely been... Read More »

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Vince Guaraldi: A Charlie Brown Christmas (70th Anniversary LP)

Tom Gibbs — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 21:54:21 +0000

The first Peanuts comic strips from cartoonist Charles Schulz appeared in newspapers in October, 1950, and Craft Recordings is celebrating 70 years of Peanuts and Charlie Brown this year with a limited edition series of LP releases. Next up: the original soundtrack from 1965's A Charlie Brown Christmas television special; the soundtrack album has sold... Read More »

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It's Happened Again!

Roger Skoff — Tue, 01 Dec 2020 18:26:05 +0000

Roger Skoff writes about audiophiles and double-blind testing. Yup, I was on Facebook, browsing one of the audiophile groups (you'll probably know which one from what I'm about to tell you) when I came across a slugfest between a long-time reviewer friend of mine and several "rationalist" "audiophiles" (Yeah, both of those terms are in... Read More »

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Anna Fedorova - With Magic in the Air

Rushton Paul — Sun, 29 Nov 2020 19:10:47 +0000

Do you recall certain artists whose new releases you eagerly awaited? Anna Fedorova is that artist for us these days. We only recently discovered two of her solo albums on Channel Classics, Storyteller and Four Fantasies. I wrote about these thoroughly engaging releases in a recent article. Now we've found her duo album, Silhouettes, with... Read More »

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Simaudio MOON 600i v2 Integrated Amplifier

John Acton — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 17:28:44 +0000

As I've grown older, and presumably, wiser, I've come to appreciate more the significance of anniversaries. Whether they be personal, such as birthdays and wedding anniversaries, or professional (it occurs to me that I've been on the masthead at Positive Feedback for nearly 20 years), these milestone accomplishments resonate with me, due perhaps to their... Read More »

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Rachel Podger's Joyful Ventures With Bach

Rushton Paul — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 21:40:06 +0000

Rachel Podger is a joyful music maker, regardless of her choice of composers. And she is one of the best artists performing today on baroque violin and within the world of period instrument performance generally with her Brecon Baroque ensemble. I wrote enthusiastically about Podger and Brecon Baroque in my article about Channel Classics and the... Read More »

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Impressions: The Warwick Acoustics Aperio Reference Headphone Amp/Preamp and DAC

David W. Robinson — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 21:34:49 +0000

...with comments on the Synergistic Research MiG SX Isolation Feet. This is a story long in the coming. Long, long, long. Ye Olde Editor in contemplative mode, Happy Valley, OR, 2017… (Photograph by John Robinson; image processing by David W. Robinson) By way of backstory… You see, I've been following Warwick Acoustics and its predecessor... Read More »

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André Previn - A Fresh Voice on RCA With Supporting Cast From Decca

Rushton Paul — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 17:26:29 +0000

Circa 1967, that is… Imprints on music are lifelong influences. Among my early imprints that I continue to cherish are the recordings made by André Previn with the London Symphony early in his career. Released by RCA from around 1967 to 1972, these Decca recorded performances are a consistent pleasure. The various Decca recording teams,... Read More »

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A Fantastic Carnaval from Nicolas van Poucke and TRPTK

Rushton Paul — Mon, 23 Nov 2020 17:21:47 +0000

Nicolas van Poucke: The Schumann Collection, Vol. 1, TRPTK. (2020 (DXD) (HERE) What a pleasure to listen to this quite extraordinary pianist, Nicolas van Poucke, in this new release from TRPTK. His performances of the Schumann works on this album are totally engaging, full of musical intelligence and emotional depth. It is always a treat... Read More »

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