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Editorial, April 2026 from High Fidelity The audio industry is a battleground where views, opinions, and various solutions clash, all aiming to lead us toward the same goal—better sound. In the heat of the battle, we fail to notice that it is subject to the same laws as any other field related to manufacturing. In... Read More »

We deeply believe in "development" and "progress." Especially in audio. On the other hand, we know that newer is not always better and that old technologies can surprise us. So what is the current situation: Is there progress or not, and if there is, what drives it, and how should we respond to it? Let's... Read More »

This article is part of an ongoing series examining electromagnetic field theory and its application to high-fidelity audio reproduction. The engineering framework described here has been developed, tested, and refined over thirty-three years of product development at Synergistic Research—and has been the subject of extensive public discussion on my personal Facebook page, where the physics,... Read More »

Being a music and audio person, I have some thoughts about how AI will relate to our listening consumption in an increasingly AI-laden era. Unlike much of the AI slop and other...stuff that now permeates the internet and social media, this article was written exclusively by a human, me, and the opinions expressed are strictly... Read More »

Some of Positive Feedback's intrepid readers may have thought about writing audio reviews. Much like purified drinking water and soft fluffy toilet paper, there's always a pressing need for gifted Consumer Electronics (CE) industry writers. Many audiophiles believe they could work as professional audio reviewers. Some semi-geniuses imagine that they might even become brain surgeons... Read More »

Theodore Walton Denney III Founder, Lead Designer & CEO — Synergistic Research, Inc. This article is drawn from an ongoing series of public discussions on electromagnetic field theory and audio cable design, conducted on my personal Facebook page over the past several weeks. The exchanges documented here are real—quoted directly from public comments—and represent a... Read More »

Roger Skoff finally reveals all. For most of a century—even before some early genius coined the term "high fidelity"—audiophiles, music lovers, and HiFi Crazies have been working to create the ultimate system for sound reproduction. In the course of their efforts, an amazing number of approaches have been tried, and an amazing number of skills... Read More »

A time for downsizing may come in your life, as it did in mine. If you've spent decades enjoying vinyl, you may find yourself staring at shelves upon shelves of records that, sooner or later, will need to find a new home. In my case, that meant more than 8000 LPs. When we moved to... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about why throwing money at, it isn't always the best way to solve a problem  Many years ago, when I was just starting XLO, a top (and very wealthy) American neurosurgeon with a state‑of‑the‑art, viciously expensive system (actually, three of them, but we'll only be talking here about the one in his... Read More »

Preamplifier – "Yes" or "no"? The 152nd meeting of the Krakow Sonic Society was devoted to a problem faced by many audiophiles—at some stage, almost all of them. It concerns the line preamplifier. Is it necessary or not? Does it improve the sound or degrades its quality? And above all, is it worth paying so... Read More »

Photo credit Bricasti Design. Bricasti Design, Ltd. was founded as a pro-audio company, specializing in reverberation units. Bricasti's principals formerly worked at Lexicon, which, at the time, was a Harmon International subsidiary. Reverbs are used not only in the recording process. Reverbs are also used in live-performance PA systems. Example, singer/guitarist John Mayer, when he... Read More »

This is a guest article by reader David Fisher It seems like each new popular musical genre initially gets labeled "the devil's music." In the 1920s, the swinging rhythms of jazz were considered taboo in some corners of polite society. Later, subtle to blatantly risqué lyrics earned Delta blues that "devil's music" moniker. Then along... Read More »

This is the second part of the history of digital recording techniques and records by Nippon Columbia, a pioneer in digital music recording. In this part, we will focus on the tape recorder that was the first product developed by Denon engineers, the DN-023R. Part 1 is HERE. Nippon Columbia, known outside Japan as Denon,... Read More »

I have long valued recordings that use a single stereo microphone (or microphones whose capsules have been closely spaced) because of their authenticity, immensely precise and stable imaging, and overall greater "true-to-life" representation of the musicians when performing within a natural acoustic environment. Getting it all right is not easy, it does not just happen... Read More »

Roger Skoff says yes, but not as much as you think... Back in the old days of HiFi, if you were to ask audiophiles to name the single greatest requirement for perfect sound reproduction, my guess is that at least 9 out of 10 would have said "flat frequency response." That was in the mid-1950s,... Read More »

Martorella Mechanics' Hall photo, "Birdseye of Steve copy. Photo courtesy of John Quick Dear Friends, I was an amateur reel-to-reel tape recordist from junior high-school on. I was fascinated by everything about record production. Undeterred by my relative ignorance (and total lack of practical experience), circa 1981, I set about trying to arrange a recording... Read More »

Roger Skoff:  a moment, Dry Brush Fantasy Variation. LAOC Gala 2024. (Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) Roger Skoff writes the most radical article about High-End HiFi  you'll ever read... When I was a twelve year-old HiFi Crazy kid, back in the 1950s, HiFi was simple: There was only one (monophonic) channel. Stereophonic... Read More »

I'd like to think I have an audio worldview that makes consistent sense, both in the scientific world and the audiophile world. For example, I know that no amount of equipment mania will replace fixing a room with bad acoustics. I know this makes sense: paying attention to acoustic science will get you, say, 90%... Read More »

Frank Doris at AXPONA 2017 (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) This essay was originally published in Copper magazine, and is republished courtesy of Frank Doris and Paul McGowan of PS Audio. Thanks, gents!   October 2, 2025 is the 10th annual World Audiophile Day, and it makes me think about the whole audiophile "thing."... Read More »