A Portrait of Michael Mercer: THE Show, Newport Beach, CA, 2013 I have to admit, it felt great to laugh out-loud while reading Dr. D's (as I call him) farewell essay on Harry Pearson. It was also refreshing; as he stated, because Dr. D never worked for Harry. He was able to take a more... Read More »
I admit it; I can be late to the party. The vast majority of gear I have written about is not new to serious audio buffs and some has had much previous press. There are two broad causes for this: One: I am not "initials" famous. You can't utter "gb" and watch as everyone turns... Read More »
The movement of reference-grade reference tapes to DSD for downloading continues apace. One of the industry leaders in this regard is High Definition Tape Transfers. Bob Witrak at HDTT, who had been working previously in high-resolution PCM, is setting a very high bar for both the quality and quantity of his DSD downloads. If you... Read More »
It was with great pleasure that I unpacked the newest isolation board from Janusz Rogoz, which is marked as the 3RP1/BBS. Large and heavy, employing the BBS (Balancing Board System) and nicely done, it is an idea developed by the business owner for quite some time now. I perfectly remember my first contact with the... Read More »
Harry Pearson, a characteristic pose. RMAF 2009, Denver, CO With the death of Harry Pearson, Michael Mercer and I talked and decided that we would put our thoughts about his passing together in a pair of brief reflections, and publish them together. Others have already done so, and will probably continue to do so, at... Read More »
Harry Pearson was an extraordinary man. He was always curious, and could turn an acidic, negative situation into fine wine and smiles with a quick-witted retort to a verbal challenge anytime. (Well, except after imbibing too many chocolate martinis). He loved knowledge, and was always reading something in the morning hours following his daily sunrise-walk.... Read More »
The Rolling Stones, Sam Cooke & The Animals in DSD Just over a year ago, Chad Kassem at Acoustic Sounds announced the launch of Super HiRez, a new downloads site that would bring out major artist albums in Direct Stream Digital (DSD) in response to many requests from music fans and audiophiles. Since that time,... Read More »
When I think about Phasemation I see a picture in front of my eyes of an older gentleman, the CEO of this company, standing next to the TechDAS Air Force One turntable gently lowering stylus to the groove. That's a picture, to be exact, from a Stereo Sound magazine, and since the size of that... Read More »
Only my oldest, dearest friends call me "Clarkie", so be careful – but it does make for a better title, so, yeah. / The author When I first met Harry it was on the lawn of the St. Tropez Hotel at a C.E.S. some years ago. But we had had a history that, in its... Read More »
DSPeaker is a Finnish company that manufactures audio products using DSP chips made by its parent company, VSLI Solution. The two most widely known DSPeaker products are their two room correction devices: the Anti-mode 8033 that is designed to tame the room nodes caused by your subwoofer and the Dual-Core which provides room correction for... Read More »
The registration lines at RMAF 2014…busy! The Intro… Shazam! How does time pass this bloody quickly? It seems like just the other day that I was at RMAF 2013. Lila and I had to host the PFO Hospitality Room without Dave and Carol Clark, who were dealing with Carol's ailments and couldn't make it. We... Read More »
In a year 2003, a not so widely known German company called Ultrasone launched the Edition 7 headphones. It was a limited edition of 999 units. That the company was little known is an overstatement so it would be safer to say that it was unknown in Poland and I had never heard of it.... Read More »
Gary Dahl, Thom Mackris (of Galibier Designs) and I have been working on a high-efficiency speaker for a while now. This is the outcome of the enormous "Beyond the Ariel" thread on diyAudio. Gary was the first to arrive at the finish line, with the system that appears on the most recent pages of the thread. He's... Read More »
Mastered from the original 1970s era analog tapes and pressed in Germany on beautiful 180 gram vinyl (and also released on CD), ECM's Re:Solutions series brings to light recordings by vibraphonist Gary Burton, saxophonist Sam Rivers, bassist Miroslav Vitous, and the duo of guitarists John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner. Some of these recordings have been... Read More »
During the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2014, Myles Astor posted images and thoughts daily on the Positive Feedback Facebook page. Check out his reports here. RMAF Day One RMAF Day Two RMAF Day Three
As personal audio enthusiasts, most of us have a decent portable rig to get us through the day. Occasionally, it becomes our only rig for days (or weeks) at a time during business trips or vacations.
The pictures that accompany High Fidelity's review of the ASX-1000 amplifier show that it is a fairly large, not to say massive, unit. Short of putting the amplifier directly on the floor, I seated it on the Acoustic Revive RST-38H isolation boards. I needed two of them for a firm seating of the amplifier's feet.... Read More »
Our entire hobby is predicated on the contradiction of music reproduction, and one chord strummed live shatters the illusion of high end. But the joy I get from headphone listening, the main system, my car audio (even my Sports Walkman cassette player!) is very real and, often, equal in intensity. I say, leave the audio... Read More »
The Theory One day when looking closely at a copy of the Beatles' first mono single, "Love Me Do" (a replica, sadly), I had an epiphany. You see, my vision is in the extreme nearsighted range, which is mostly a curse but also a blessing because my eyes are like microscopes. The average human eye... Read More »
Hi I would like to introduce myself to you. My name is Frankie Rat and I have an audio story for you. I hope you find it interesting so here goes. It's not easy living in the rat race. I get up real early in the morning, hop in my little rat rod slide down... Read More »
"The muses dance and sing| They make the children really ring I spend the day your way Call it morning driving thru the sound and In and out the valley" - "Roundabout" by Yes As you may remember from an earlier article, I recently moved to San Francisco and had to scale down my... Read More »
Last year there were concerns about the lack of high resolution music files available in the Direct Stream Digital (DSD) format for purchase. It was a factor that some music fans cited as a reason for holding off on buying a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) that included DSD playback. Those of you following the... Read More »
Attack of the PODs! No they are not from Mars! They are from London: Designed, constructed, and shipped from London, England by the brilliant Max Townshend to American audiophiles like us, for the best replacement of the air filled bladder sinks of old. The PODs isolate your gear like it was suspended in outer space.... Read More »
The AURALiC VEGA DSD DAC (top) and TAURUS headphone amp (bottom) in tandem, on one of our reference Stillpoints ESS Grid Racks… lovely, lovely! Once, and not so long ago (A year? Two?), I maintained a list of DSD DACs. After the establishment of the DSD-over-PCM (DoP) open standard, and the polishing of ASIO drivers... Read More »
More than once this writer has been accused of having a single-track mind when it comes to talking audio. This view I must heartily confute: in fact he has three tracks. But the one that attracts attention foremost does concern polarity, also known as acoustic polarity, also under proper circumstances known as Absolute Polarity. On... Read More »
I had the distinct pleasure of attending a press briefing the other night to announce the release of a special limited edition box set of recordings to honor the 75th anniversary of Blue Note Records. Our hosts were Owen Kwon, VP of Product and Business for Astell & Kern, and Don Was, President of Blue Note... Read More »
George Klissarov, exaSound (left) and Jared Sacks, NativeDSD.Com (right) Listening to Multichannel DSD Music at RMAF 2013 Pushing the Boundaries of High Resolution Audio Many Positive Feedback readers and audiophiles are familiar with exaSound Audio Design based in Toronto, Canada. For those of you who are new to the world of high resolution stereo and multichannel music... Read More »
"Say it ain't so, I will not go, Turn the lights off, Carry me home" —"All the Small Things", Blink 182 So this all started with a big argument that my girlfriend and I had, the resolution of which was to move in together up in San Francisco, where she already lived. The problem was... Read More »
John (Fritz) Heiler has been designing his Fritz Speakers loudspeakers for over thirty years. His credo is always consistent: He uses the same premium parts as speakers costing much more, and works hard to make affordable speakers that deliver exceptional sound. I've met Fritz many times over the years. He's a really likable, down-to-earth guy,... Read More »
Another summer gone. Although nothing could beat the summer of Luxman for exquisite sound quality here at the shack (see HERE and HERE), recent experience with the Audioengine B1 proves once again that audio fun can be simple and inexpensive, if you know what to look for. The Audioengine B1 Premium Bluetooth Music Receiver "My world is perfect!"... Read More »
Chad Kassem and Marc Sheforgan of SuperHirez.com Chad Kassem is well known in music circles and among Positive Feedback readers as the CEO of Acoustic Sounds, Super HiRez music downloads site, Analogue Productions record label and Quality Record Pressings—a high quality Vinyl LP pressing plant. This has put Kassem at the forefront of many major breakthroughs in... Read More »
That's right, HiFi is a scam, and you, I, and every other audiophile, music lover, and HiFi Crazy have all been laboring under a misapprehension for all these many years. To make it even worse, even those people I've been maligning for so long by, in my innocent ignorance, calling them fools, trolls, "flat-earthers," troglodytes,... Read More »
The 2014 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest is fast approaching. Running from October 10-12, this event has been one of the great regional high-end audio events for years now. For the past few years I have been moderating a series of seminars on DSD audio developments. These have featured many of the leading persons in the... Read More »
Antonin Dvorak, Symphony No.8. Leos Janacek. Jenufa Symphonic Suite. Orchestra: Pittsburg Symphony. Conductor: Manfred Honeck. Reference Recordings #FR-710SACD Hybrid It is truly nice to have the Pittsburg symphony back again after some previous delays. The orchestra has a great history supporting it that is not known well outside of the Pittsburg area; the full range... Read More »
Last year, in May, the remarkable (truly without equal) Herbie Hancock gave the commencement address at Soka University, where I teach humanities and literature, as well as coordinating the "Jazz Monsters" concert series which I founded in 2005 after decades of teaching at Cornell, Brown, Stanford, Brandeis, and UCLA. Herbie's eloquent message to our graduating... Read More »
The Capital Audiofest is one of the few true high-end audio shows left in the world, and as the industry shrinks all of these shows become more and more important. Long-time readers will recall that I have very mixed feelings about the current state of the high end audio industry, and because of that I... Read More »
I love it when an albums' sound is so fresh and mysterious it challenges my ability to classify it. My dear friend and editor Dave Clark recommended Fhloston Paradigm's The Phoenix, knowing my taste (and his) for experimental electronic music. I would definitely call The Phoenix experimental. However, I'm not sure if this record is in fact 'electronic'. It... Read More »
