September - October 2017 Archives - Positive Feedback

RMAF 2017 Photo Essay Part 5

Carol Clark — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 20:33:55 +0000

Our coverage of Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2017 continues. In this report, all photos by Dave Clark, words by Carol Clark. Thrax Audio, Symposium Acoustics, Sound Application, Antipodes, Weiss Engineering, Audio Den, Audio Limits. Acoustic Sounds, and the amplifiers are a custom-made gift to Sony from Nelson Pass. As always, the Daedalus Audio, WyWires, and... Read More »

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RMAF 2017 Photo Essay Part 4

Carol Clark — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 17:17:04 +0000

Our coverage of Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2017 continues. In this report, all photos by Dave Clark, words by Carol Clark. Schiit Audio and Salk Sound. Schiit Freya preamplifier. Schiit Vidar amplifiers. Great sounding room! Ryan R620 loudspeakers, Vincent Audio SA T7 preamplifier and SP 331 MK hybrid power amplifer, Aurender A10 music server, and... Read More »

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Audio Ramblings - The Gold Note PH-10 Phono Stage

Dave Clark — Fri, 20 Oct 2017 15:32:22 +0000

Gold Note might not be familiar to us here in the States as they are a relatively new company from Italy that is rapidly filling its offerings with anything and everything a music loving audiophile could imagine; from amplifiers, preamplifiers, speakers, turntables, servers and DACs, they have it all. And all made with that Italian... Read More »

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RMAF 2017 Photo Essay Part 3

Carol Clark — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 22:57:10 +0000

Our coverage of Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2017 continues. In this report, all photos by Dave Clark, words by Carol Clark. Focal, Naim, Vicoustic, Audio Plus Services. ELAC had more than one room at the show, this one featured more affordable gear. Aurender had the A10 music server on hand along with Magnepan 3.7 loudspeakers,... Read More »

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RMAF 2017 Photo Essay Part 2

Carol Clark — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 17:27:43 +0000

Our coverage of Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2017 continues. In this report, all photos by Dave Clark, words by Carol Clark. AVM Audio, Music Direct. This room sounded great. Martin Logan Ltd., D'Agostino, Stromtrunk, AudioQuest. Fort Collins Audio featured some new products. Spendor A4 loudspeakers, Rega P6 turntable, Chord Hugo, and Cardas Clear Beyond XL.... Read More »

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TAVES Consumer Electronics Show 2017

Malcolm J. Gomes — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 23:12:01 +0000

This year, for the first time in its history, the TAVES Consumer Electronics Show was moved to a non-hotel setting. The 2017 TAVES venue was the Toronto Congress Center in Etobicoke. This suited the organizers goal of transforming TAVES from a predominantly high-end audio show, to a true, all encompassing Consumer Electronics Show. This transition... Read More »

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Carver Amazing Line Source Speaker and the Even More Amazing Bob Carver

Michael Wechsberg — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 15:48:03 +0000

On Sunday October 15, 2017, the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society held its monthly meeting at the beautiful Weinhart Design audio emporium in Bel Air, CA. The main draw for this meeting was an opportunity to audition the Carver Amazing Line Source (ALS) Speakers from the Bob Carver Corporation. But, not only would... Read More »

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Jennifer Warnes: "Song of Bernadette"

John Marks — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 19:53:08 +0000

John Marks of The Tannhauser Gate favors us with some reflections upon Bernadettes, Leonard Cohen of remarkable memory, the exceptional Jennifer Warnes, and a certain haunting song. This is a bracing little essay, taking across time and space to one of the great tandems of recent decades: Cohen and Warnes. He's gone now, to my heart's... Read More »

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Equipment for Making Archival Digital Copies of an LP, Part 6: The Audio-Technica ATH-M50x Headphones

John Marks — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 22:53:04 +0000

This is the sixth and final installment of John Marks series on putting together a system to digitize your LPs. Republished from his blog site, The Tannhauser Gate, John's comments are a useful introduction to the process of going digital with your analog records. The links to the entire set of articles is referenced below, should... Read More »

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Sonore's UltraRendu Streamer with the UpTone Audio UltraCap™ LPS-1 Linear Power Supply

Tom Gibbs — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 20:30:48 +0000

Streaming is the future of computer audio. Anyone who's serious about playback of digital files knows that streaming is essential to achieve the ultimate in effortless, totally transparent playback. Think of it like this: with computer audio, there's no transport, per se; you can have the world's greatest digital-to-analog converter, but you've still gotta have... Read More »

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Premier Review: Yuko Mabuchi Trio Live Concert Recording from Yarlung Records

Robert H. Levi — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 18:23:43 +0000

Yuko Mabuchi Trio; Yuko Mabuchi piano, Bobby Breton drums, and Del Atkins bass; Yarlung Records 80161 CD, pressed in Germany on high definition special composite materials. Available in PCM and DSD on HDTracks, and NativeDSD.com up to DSD256 (Quad DSD). 2017. Recorded before a live audience at the Brain and Creativity Institute’s Cammilleri Hall. Yuko Mabuchi plays a Steinway Piano. Recording... Read More »

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The New Apartment Lounge: Welcoming the New Von Schweikert Audio Unifield 2 Mk III Loudspeakers (Part 1)

Maurice Jeffries — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 02:55:29 +0000

Sizing Things Up Straight out of the box, the new Von Schweikert Audio Unifield 2 Mk III Loudspeakers (a replacement for the highly regarded Mk II version that came out several years ago) remind you that they are no ordinary compacts. For starters, these hefty beasts tip the scales at just over 50 pounds—each. Speakers in... Read More »

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Building a System from Technics - The SU-C700 Stereo Integrated Amplifier, SB-C700 Speaker System, and 1200G Turntable

Danny Kaey — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 18:05:33 +0000

Technics is on a roll. Leave it up to the brand which helped define consumer HiFi in the 70s, to continue delivering the goods in 2017. That's quite the stretch, in a competitive industry like the entry level consumer HiFi market. Looking though their luxe, visually bold website, nay, experience portal, one can't help reminisce... Read More »

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Merrill Audio Veritas Monoblock Amplifiers: Are All Class-D Amplifiers the Same?

Myles B. Astor — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 15:27:00 +0000

Have Class-D amplifiers gotten a bad rap? Despite my colleague Guido Corona's enthusiastic review of Merrill Audio's Veritas amplifiers (HERE) some four years ago, the sound and performance of all Class-D amplifiers still tends to be lumped together and in the words of the immortal Rodney Dangerfield, "…don't get any respect." Is or isn't that... Read More »

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The State of the Cable Art: van den Hul 3T Mountain Cables, & the Kubala-Sosna Realization Series

Jim Merod — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 00:39:30 +0000

Experience, Direct Witness, Astonishment What It Is Across more than forty years I've recorded live jazz in many locations. The list of venues and places has grown long. The number of musicians—great, very good, extraordinary, iconoclastic and, on occasion, startling—has grown even longer. Jim Merod with Ornette Coleman (photograph courtesy of BluePort Records) Early on,... Read More »

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Unique Innovation Technology (UIT) Perfect Music Purifier (PMP) Interconnect Series: A Postscript

Robert H. Levi — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 22:48:28 +0000

Many of our readers will have read my earlier rave review of the Unique Innovation Technology (UIT) interconnects back in Positive Feedback Issue 92. With some 18 meters of UIT Interconnect included in my two systems, I can now further report on the extraordinary performance of this under-$1000 per meter interconnect development for audiophiles and music lovers. I... Read More »

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Happy Happy Joy Joy - PASS Labs XP-10 Preamplifier

Larry Cox — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 18:51:24 +0000

Reviewing Reviewing has been a boon to me. I enjoy audio and music more than I ever have because of it. While my time for listening is pinched by my life outside of audio, I enjoy a greater variety of music than ever. I've discovered the wonder underneath the horror of the distant shore of... Read More »

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NSMT A100 Amplifier

Francisco Duran — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 16:10:35 +0000

I am so excited about this amplifier I don't know where to start. First and foremost is its surprising performance. Secondly is the price. For something so small and inexpensive, it seems only natural that expectation bias rears its ugly head. But that would be doing anyone with even a passing interest for this amplifier... Read More »

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Air Tight’s Top-of-the-Line Cartridges: The Supreme and Opus

Marshall Nack — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 15:53:02 +0000

Air Tight's Supreme and Opus Cartridges What's the Pecking Order? "That would make life very interesting, but wouldn't it be overkill?" I was in the middle of a Thales turntable review and had the TTT-Compact II table and Simplicity II tonearm on the floor mounted with my Air Tight PC-1s MC cartridge ($14,500, $9200, and... Read More »

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The Arai Lab MT-1 Step-Up Transformer for Moving Coil Phonograph Cartridges

Jeff Day — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 15:40:20 +0000

One look at the Arai Lab MT-1 step-up transformer (SUT) and you'll know in a moment that it is a very serious, ultra-quality, audio product. The fit and finish are impressive and impeccable, yet what really stood out for me was the Arai MT-1's considerable size and weight—it wasn't that much smaller than one of... Read More »

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Hairersoft Amadeus Pro 2 Editing and Mastering Software, Part 5

John Marks — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 18:50:28 +0000

Below you'll find part five of John Marks' six-part series describing one method for digitizing LPs. John, he of the blog site The Tannhauser Gate, gives our readers a cost-effective and reasonably simple method for transferring your albums to PCM files for archiving and playback functions. As he points out in his footnote, this method does... Read More »

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Special Report: iQSE Disks from BybeeTech

Robert H. Levi — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 16:00:36 +0000

The Bybee iQSE (photograph courtesy of Bybee Technologies) iQSE Disks or Quantum Signal Enhancers by the legendary Jack Bybee is quite a tweak at an affordable $150 per 4 inch x 2 inch disk. You can read a full report on these from Larry Cox in Positive Feedback. I found all new uses for these that I feel... Read More »

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Lone Star Audio Fest 2017

Norman Tracy — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 17:39:52 +0000

Passion, that one word sums it all up and answers many questions. Why collectively spend decades evolving a simple table radio into a complex collection of boxes and wires? Passion, to advance the state-of-the-art in home music reproduction chasing an absolute ideal of fidelity. Why spend hundreds of hours designing a product line of HiFi... Read More »

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Sound Devices USBPre 2 Portable High-Resolution Audio Interface, Part 4

John Marks — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 01:26:57 +0000

This is Part 4 of John Marks six-part series on digitizing LPs. This series is re-published from John's blog site, The Tannhauser Gate. In this set, he is providing his readers and ours with a solid and reasonably-priced way to archive their precious vinyl to digital format. I commend John's care and attention to detail. Read... Read More »

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Astell & Kern AK T1p Headphones

Robert H. Levi — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 00:57:04 +0000

Exciting news! Astell & Kern has some really great new headphones that you need to know about. They're the A&K T1p, and I think they're terrific! Extravagantly made for A&K, the T1p is a modified German beyerdynamics Tesla Gen. 2 headphone that are hugely popular in Great Britain and the EU. The A&K T1p, which are Cartier-like beautiful and... Read More »

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