SONORE, a Simple Design company, welcomes you to the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest. Stop by suite 9117 and discover our World of Fiber Optic Audio. Listen to our amazing SONORE Signature Rendu SE, reference streamer now with our SystemOptique technology and share with us your comments. We are confident you will be pleasantly surprised. We... Read More »
David W. Robinson: a portrait by John Robinson The Merrill Audio Element 118. Why that name? Simple, says Merrill Wettasinghe, the designer: "Element 118 is named after the newest element in the periodic table called Oganesson, which completes the 7th row of the periodic table. The name Element 118 reflects the newest in technologies in... Read More »
Ketil Vestrum Einarsen - Photo by Dag Thrane (Used with permission) Ketil Vestrum Einarsen was born on the north-western edge of Norway. Known primarily for playing flute with a long list of bands, including White Willow, The Opium Cartel, Jaga Jazzist, Wobbler, Pixie Ninja, and more recent collaborations in Kaukasus and Galasphere 347, he stepped... Read More »
From left to right, Intel Nuc Roon Core, Pro-Ject Stream Box S2 Ultra, Raspberry Pi 3 B+, Raspberry Pi 3 B+ Over the past year I have spent a significant amount of time working on solving what appeared to be a simple problem. How do I distribute my digital music throughout my home in an... Read More »
Twenty questions with an audiophile who is also an artist. For this Audiophiles as Artists, we feature Adam Goldfine who also writes for PF. What's your background? My interest in film and photography began around the age of 10. I loved going to the movies, started taking photographs, developing film, and making prints. I studied... Read More »
Masayuki Takayanagi and Abe Kaoru, Kaitai Teki Kokan. Premiere: 1970 | Sound Creators Inc. SCi - 10101. Reissue: 2018 | Craftman Records CMRS-0013. Format: UHQCD, mini-LP. craftmanrecords.com As it seems, every music genre and each trend within it and, on the other hand, every national discography have their "rarities"—rare and special, often simply "cult" albums. "A cult....... Read More »
Cutting edge digital music capabilities combined with time tested vacuum tube performance Binghamton, NY – August 15, 2019 – McIntosh, the global leader in prestigious home entertainment and ultimate-quality audio for 70 years, is proud to announce the C2700 Vacuum Tube Preamplifier. Following a long line of revered McIntosh vacuum tube preamplifiers comes the new... Read More »
Qobuz, the certified Hi-Res streaming and download hybrid service, today celebrates six months of success in the US. In this time, it has become the music streaming service of choice for US music aficionados by taking a listener-first, genre-focused approach and offering the most Hi-Res available anywhere. Finally offering an app that connects the 32M+... Read More »
Why is that with all the music we have access to, we still play the same 50 albums? I grew up in a time of Hi-Fi that I thought was the golden age. It wasn't centered on the gear… it was all we had, but was centered on the music. I suppose we all have... Read More »
This is an ongoing project by Claude Lemaire of Soundevaluations 101. Curtis Mayfield, Superfly (The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). Curtom – CRS-8014-ST (1972), MoFi, Rhino Records – MFSL 2-481 (2019), (2x45 rpm). Genre: funk, soul, blaxploitation soundtrack style, cinematic soul, ghetto soul. "I'm your mama, I'm your daddy; I'm that...in the alley; I'm your doctor, when in need;... Read More »
Boulder, CO: 8/6/2019 PS Audio's first product way back in 1974 was a phono preamplifier that outperformed and replaced far more expensive units. Since then, we've offered a number of excellent phono preamps but the newStellar Phono Preamplifier is the best we've ever made. Designer Darren Myers rejected the common, cost-cutting techniques of phono preamp... Read More »
The Software The 60th anniversary of jazz king John Coltrane's banner year with Prestige Records, with all cuts produced by legendary Rudy Van Gelder and released on vinyl 4/26/19, has arrived. The eight LPs are from 24/192 tracks produced from the master tapes. The 37 cuts, presented in chronological order, were pressed at RTI in... Read More »
Saturday 7/27/2019, Boston MA First, a public service announcement: Get off the screens! While I work tirelessly with my children on this, I believe it is important for us, too. Perhaps this is self defeating as a columnist for an online magazine, however I cannot encourage the PF community enough to get off-line, plan a... Read More »
This article originally ran in Issue 41 of Positive Feedback, January/February 2009. This was the precursor to my last article, HERE. So …what do you want to be when you grow up? When I was in the first grade my class took a field trip to the fire station. At the time I thought... Read More »
HOLDEN, MA (July 22, 2019) – Vinnie Rossi has officially transitioned from direct sales to a dealer network in the USA and is pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Sossa of Well Pleased Audio Video as the company’s sales representative for North America, effective July 22, 2019. Commenting on the new partnership, Rossi said,... Read More »
So, when it comes down to getting the best, make that the very best, that one's system can produce sound wise in your room, after all is said and done… let's make sure that the AC that is feeding our components is as good as it can get—like with any AC filtration device or a... Read More »
Abey Fonn and the entire team at IMPEX Records continue to impress and delight. Though we have only just passed the halfway point for the year 2019, these new vinyl releases entitled Another Time, Another Place from Jennifer Warnes and Lo Que Nice Mi Cantar from Trio Palabras are already strong contenders for my favorite albums... Read More »
Lynn Olson and Thom Mackris, RMAF 2015 Let's start with a skeptical view from Steve Guttenberg, who's been around the block more than once: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIKkBgpo75I Steve's got a point. Surround music has failed in the marketplace not once, but twice. The first was a ten-year window in the Seventies, with the LP-based QS, SQ, and... Read More »
Kronos Audio is now shipping its much anticipated SSCPS (Sparta Super Capacitor Power Supply). Exclusively for those looking for the finest analog playback (outside of the Kronos Pro), Sparta now gets a major upgrade in performance with borrowed technology from the Kronos SCPS-1. The SSCPS has energy storage that would make the largest amplifiers jealous. ... Read More »
A tape, a test pressing, an LP "The most expensive music format (in the world)" as exemplified by records produced by the AC Records label. A lot has already been said about analog tapes—by us as well. However, it was the first time we had had the opportunity to compare an analogue "master" tape with... Read More »
Herb Reichert and Lynn Olson at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, 2015 (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) In my sophomore year in college (in Claremont, California), I applied for several Federal summer jobs in Washington, D.C. since my parents lived there (my father was transitioning from the Foreign Service to Marine Midland... Read More »
FLORENCE, Italy: Gold Note - the Italian High-End Audio manufacturer based in Florence – is introducing DS-10, an innovative D/A Converter & Streamer with Headphone amplifier and analogue preamplifier stage designed for the contemporary audiophile. First presented at the High End Show in Munich in 2019, DS-10 represents the state of the art among our... Read More »
LONDON / HANGZHOU, JULY 16th, 2019 - Xiami Music, a wholly-owned entity of the Alibaba Group, will be the first music streaming service in China to adopt MQA. With the implementation of MQA, Xiami Music will become the audio quality leader in China, sending a clear signal to artists and creators that Xiami’s service is... Read More »
Original version published Feb 20, 2015. Revised after stumbling onto Positive Feedback's Carol Clark's recent post, My Journey into Audio Pandora, Carol Clark (image by David Clark, Positive Feedback) It looked like Carol recently had a similar experience as I did in 2015 that "left [her] stewing." We have been friends with Dave and Carol... Read More »
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab reissue MFSL 2-479 (Sept. 2017). Originally released on Atlantic – SD-8227 (Aug. 1969). Category: soul, southern soul, R&B, blues, black gospel and spiritual roots, churchy. Format: Vinyl (2x180 gram LPs at 45 rpm). Rating Global Appreciation: 9.6 Music: A+ (9.5) Recording: 9.3 Remastering + Lacquer Cutting: 9.7 Pressing: 10 Packaging: above... Read More »
SAINT-SAËNS: Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor; LALO: Cello Concerto in D minor; MILHAUD: Cello Concerto No. 1, Op. 136; OFFENBACH: Les larmes de Jacqueline; MASSENET: Thaïs: Méditation. Hee-Young Lim, cello; London Symphony Orchestra/Scott Yoo. Sony Classical S80425C. TT: 75.40 The Korean cellist Hee-Young Lim has a lot to offer. Her tone is dark and full-bodied,... Read More »
The first product to feature McIntosh’s new advanced DA2 Digital Audio Module Binghamton, NY – July 10, 2019 – McIntosh, the global leader in prestigious home entertainment and ultimate-quality audio for 70 years, is proud to announce the C53 Preamplifier. The C53 Preamplifier is ready to serve in a home audio system for many years... Read More »
The three multi-use models are the company’s finest loudspeakers to date Lake Forest, CA – July 10, 2019 – Pro Audio Technology (PRO), the leading supplier of high-output loudspeakers and DSP loudspeaker controllers, announces two new series of loudspeakers consisting of three new models – S-12sm, SR-12ai, and SR-212ai – providing uncompromised sound for residential theater, commercial... Read More »
In 2012, the original AudioQuest DragonFly thoroughly disrupted the DAC market. For so many casual enthusiasts who had never previously considered the possibility of improving their digital-audio experience, DragonFly was nothing short of a revelation. Meanwhile, even the most experienced audiophiles were compelled to reexamine long-held notions of what a DAC could and should be. Stereophile’s... Read More »
Roger Skoff writes about everybody'd favorite controversial product While the debate continues on the internet over whether different cables sound different, those of us with the ears and listening skills to hear it and the systems and listening environments of sufficient resolution to show it know that it's not just different cables that sound different,... Read More »
I heard an interesting theory last year at the California Audio Show. Basically, I was informed that women aren't audiophiles because they're not wired that way. It seems boys spend time with their fathers working on cars, taking things apart and putting them back together, and are thus programmed to be gear heads. Girls, on... Read More »
Founded in 2010 by Pat Hickman, Whammerdyne Heavy Industries is an amalgamation of technical skill-sets united by a common passion for hi-end audio, based in Wilsonville, OR. With many years of combined experience in hi-end audio, electronics engineering, and CNC fabrication, the team set out to build the ultimate single-ended stereo amplifiers. The year 2019... Read More »
Qobuz, the Hi-Res streaming and download hybrid service, is teaming up with AudioQuest to give customers a taste of the best music streaming and sound with the newest generation of AudioQuest's groundbreaking DragonFly DAC line, the Dragonfly Cobalt. Upgrading Hi-Res listening from iPhones and other devices to full 24-bit, the new DragonFly comes loaded with... Read More »
BERNARDSVILLE, New Jersey, USA – Finally there is a good alternative for the purist of Reel to Reel Tape playback. Merrill Audio PURE Tape Head Preamp provides a superior Tape Head Preamp that brings out the full dynamics of Reel to Reel Tape, with the details and immediacy of the live recording. Merrill Audio is... Read More »
Self-portrait, 2017 In medias res… From time to time, I shake out my ongoing audio journal, and comment on some products and items that have accumulated over the past few months. Nothing too lengthy or intense, but quick thoughts and bullet points indicative of fine audio designs/products that I think our readers should be aware... Read More »
In this installment of the New Apartment Lounge, Maurice Jeffries takes a long hard listen to the stunning Mola Mola amp/preamp suite, an almost affordable turntable from Kronos Audio, and some smooth-sounding new cables from Kubala-Sosna Research LLC. With a fresh set of ears and new insights, he also revisits an old and trusted friend.... Read More »
Twenty questions with an audiophile who is also an artist. For this Audiophiles as Artists, we feature Chris Morris. What's your background? I grew up on a farm in eastern Colorado. No town or major population to speak of, lots of time to myself and explore the world around me. It was a very typical... Read More »
