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Colored vinyl, or a few words about the phenomenon of colored vinyl with the Komeda Quintet's Astigmatic in the version released on the artists 90th birthday as an example. Colored vinyl LPs are flooding shops and the Internet. What's the point in that? Do consumers really get more or is it just a way to... Read More »

There's been a vast amount written about what an audiophile is. (Personally, I and my friends have always preferred the term "HiFi Crazies," which, at least to us, seems more accurate and less pretentious.) Audiophiles—depending on who's writing, where, and when—have been described as everything or every combination of things from music lovers to equipment... Read More »

Roger Skoff is the former CEO and Lead Designer of XLO, and the current Chief Honcho and Lead Designer of RSX Technologies. Full disclosure = no conflict of interest, eh? The views expressed here are Roger's own...but they happen to be ones that I would agree with. You might, too, eh? And if not, la... Read More »

There are issues that drive me crazy, truly. I try not to give in to them, I look away and look for more interesting activities, but eventually, sooner or later, they come back to me. I am thinking mainly about how pavements are treated. Once the NOT office building, commonly known as the Szkieletor, today... Read More »

Some of you may recall that Ann and I have been on a journey of discovery these past three years. After 45 and more years as died-in-the-wool analog listeners, we moved from an all-vinyl listening system to an all-digital listening system. And as we've explored digital recordings, we've kept our "audiophile-off-the-deep-end" hats firmly in place,... Read More »

When I was a Kid Hi-Fi Crazy many years ago, "specs" were really important to me and to all of my Kid Hi-Fi Crazy friends. Being kids, we naturally had no money, and couldn't afford to buy anything—or at least not anything that wasn't either a kit or second-hand. Even so, we were all very... Read More »

A friend of mine was looking at these Sophia Electric vacuum tubes, and she told me "They're so pretty, they look like works of art."  These Sophia Electric vacuum tubes really are works of vacuum tube art. The Sophia Electric 45 mesh plate triode (above) and Aqua 274B rectifier (below) vacuum tubes are not only... Read More »

Clark Johnsen  New Old Stock - Articles from Our Days in Print The topic of acoustic polarity, also known as Absolute Polarity, has cropped up again recently. No surprise—since 1962 it's lingered in the professional literature, where most researchers claim that polarity matters greatly. But today, who cares? For that sorry state of affairs, you... Read More »

Edward Pong Edward Pong is the owner of UltraAnalogue Recordings. Those in the high-end reel-to-reel community will need no introduction to Ed; his stellar RTR recordings are magnificent, and really embody the sorts of audio virtues that audiophiles can appreciate all day long. As a very long-time RTR lover myself, I asked Ed to write... Read More »

The lapping of the bay, the wind through fallen tree. Birds of the sea and the land. It is all music gifted to us by nature. We use our nature to make music, and we cannot forget that nature exists within us all. I recognize the face in the mirror despite the grey flecks in... Read More »

Part 1: TECHNOLOGY In the 1990s, the music industry moved from reel-to-reel recorders, both analog and digital, to DAW recording systems, i.e. computer workstations. The Alesis ELECTRONICS ADAT digital multi-track tape recorders represent a turning point in this history. Digital Sound Recording—an audio preservation method in which the audio signals are converted into a series... Read More »

Norman Varney of AV RoomService Ltd. has joined Positive Feedback as a Senior Technical Editor as of Issue 113. His expertise in his field of audio acoustics and experience in the field makes him a helpful voice in our creative community for the audio arts. As has been our wont from the beginning of PF,... Read More »

If you stop to think about it, you'll see that all of everything about our hobby—the music we love, the gear we give so much of our wealth and interest to, and the rooms we listen in—is about vibration. The recorded music we listen to is a vibration in the air caused by the vibration... Read More »

Norman Varney of AV RoomService Ltd. has joined Positive Feedback as a Senior Technical Editor as of Issue 113. His expertise in his field of audio acoustics and experience in the field makes him a helpful voice in our creative community for the audio arts. As has been our wont from the beginning of PF,... Read More »

If you're a serious audiophile, one of the things you can be certain of is that you're eventually going to have a problem. If you're lucky, it might just be that something in your system breaks or, like tubes and some other kinds of electrical or mechanical parts, eventually wears out. If you're less lucky,... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about what might be the future of our hobby So what do you do when there's nothing to do? That's what a whole lot of us have had to figure out over most of the last year. Without restaurants, the movies, sports, concerts or other live music, without parties, the gym, or... Read More »

Or, why recordings don't always sound the same. We listen to music in various conditions, sometimes loud, sometimes quietly. However, in order to hear what is really there, we have to take into account, how it was mixed and mastered. I don't know if you pay attention to the fact that a given album sounds... Read More »

  Is He Rip, a Penny, or Moby Dick? Like the proverbial "bad penny," I keep turning up. I think our PF world could suffer another grizzled audio old-timer, so I've decided to make an inauspicious return to the fold. My reasons are many—some high-minded and altruistic, some low-minded and selfish. You needn't know which... Read More »

I have three great products to bring to your attention at the end of 2020. Listen up! Amazing Vacuum Tube Alert: GE 6189 (12AU7) JAN NOS The military/industrial NOS GE 6189 tube is a premium quality 12AU7 tube with an added internal helical wire that strengthens the grid structure and dampens vibration and noise. This... Read More »