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This guest article is by Thom Mackris, head honcho at Galibier Design. PF Senior Associate Editor Lynn Olson shared it with me right after Thom published his comments on a very recent three-hour listening session that he had with Lynn. They were doing some listening comparisons with exaSound DACs; the comments below summarize Thom's take on... 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 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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Time for cables Cables are one of the elements that constitute an audio system. It is neither more, nor less important than the remaining ones, but it is still approached with suspicion and from a distance by many engineers and music lovers. However, those who have already gone through this stage—St. Thomas's stage—do not need... Read More »

How many times have you read a review of some recording, some system, or some individual piece of gear that said something like this? "The orchestra was rendered perfectly, with each individual instrument hung in its own separate space, emerging from a perfectly black background…" Or maybe the reviewer had enthused that "It was easy... Read More »

In spite of the improvements in efficient Class D switchers, watt-sucking Class A power amplifiers continue to attract high-end audiophiles. The breed remains as popular as ever—and why not? Any product of our school system knows that A is better than B, or C or D... I get quite a bit of email, and it... Read More »

Herb Reichert (left) and Lynn Olson at RMAF 2015:  a moment (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) Although some of you may know me as the sometime Tech Editor of PF (and that only occasionally, when the mood strikes me), and the designer of the Ariel loudspeaker and Amity and Karna 300B triode... Read More »

Most anyone that knows me well knows that analog playback has been my chosen lifestyle for the last two decades in that, as an "industry professional" I imported and distributed high performance / high mass turntables, tonearms, phono cartridges, and associated electronics for some 14 years, established the Thorens TD-124 restoration model for North America,... Read More »

Or how to set up speakers Did you ever experience a situation where the loudspeakers that sounded so great in distributor's showroom after you bought them and placed them in your room sounded as if they were broken? If you did, almost certainly the reason for that was the acoustics of your listening room, and... Read More »

Lyn Stanley (photograph by Evelina Pentcheva) Synopsis: Preparation for the making a Direct-To-Disc recording is more complicated than a typical album.  In this follow-up article to Lyn Stanley's Direct-To-Disc discussion elsewhere in Issue 101 of Positive Feedback, she outlines what are her key considerations and process needed to produce a challenging live format directly to a lacquer with... Read More »

WARNING: This may very well be the most controversial article on High-End audio you'll ever read. Roger Skoff at the LAOC Audio Society Gala, 2018 Are you going to put together a new High-End audio system? Start with the cables! Read on to find out why this can give you better sound and save you... Read More »

Roger Skoff at the LAOC Audio Society Gala Banquet, 2018:  a portrait by David W. Robinson In Part 1 of this two-part article, I pointed out that we audiophiles are the only fan group I know of who argue, not just about which stuff is better, but about whether, for some products, there's any difference... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about the ongoing war over cables and what really matters Roger Skoff at the LAOC Audio Society Gala Banquet, 2018:  a portrait by David W. Robinson I've said it before, and you've seen it before:  We audiophiles, unlike any other group of fans or hobbyists that I know of, are always at... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about a basic split in our hobby I admit it; I don't own a smartphone. And for driving instructions, I have to go to my home computer. I've also never owned an Amazon "Kindle" or any other such device, and I don't intend to. Does that make me a Luddite? Maybe, but... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor, a portrait. (Photograph by John Robinson; image processing by Ye Olde Etc.) I made a recent trip to Salina, Kansas to catch the 20th Anniversary Acoustic Sounds/Analogue Productions Blues Master weekend. My good audiobud Chad Kassem had been asking me to catch this event for twenty years now, and I had always... Read More »