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I like surprises. I especially like them when they bushwhack me. You know…when I'm not looking and all. This doesn't happen in audioville very often. Usually there's a reasonable expectation of the quality of what I'm going to hear when products come in for review. Most of my review projects are by invitation; I generally... Read More »

One of the most frequent reactions of people who have never visited me before and who have nothing to do with audio, is their surprise at the sight of my speaker cables trailing on the floor. In my reference system, I have been using the Tara Labs Omega Onyx cables for many years. They are... Read More »

The Sunshine Company, Ltd. S50 Underboard Isolation Platform Early this year, David Robinson asked if I would be interested in reviewing a line of cost-effective isolation products from a Japanese company, Sunshine Company, Ltd., with my Magnepan 3.7i loudspeakers. They claimed excellent success in helping music lovers and audiophile improve the performance of their audio... Read More »

Okay so in my last two Ramblings I shared my experiences, and expectations, of music servers or streamers; specifically the Antipodes DX and the Aries from Auralic. Both stunningly good, and yet both at rather opposite ends of the "what does it cost to get the best," and how they are packaged to the end... Read More »

"EMI and RFI run deep, into your DAC they will creep. Stop, now, what's that sound, everybody look what's going down..."—with deepest apologies to Stephen Stills. I'm basically an old-school analogue kind of guy at heart. Back in the day, my idea of getting closer to the music would mean some kind of tonearm/cartridge/stylus upgrade... Read More »

There is not too many people like Mr Shirokazu Yazaki. I was tempted to write something like: are extremely rare, but I managed to hold myself back. He is an engineer with impressive education and immense practical experience with both, analogue and digital devices. He created such a remarkable devices like TEAC A-7300 reel-to-reel, high... Read More »

I like the idea of resonators as a prescription: Take one a day to keep the shakes away. Ha! Not quite, just me being silly. Seriously though, they are a sonic purgative. The actual prescription is to put them at strategic points on your components to prevent vibrations or mechanical energy from doing mischief. As... Read More »

If you're an audiophile, you realize at some point that digital spinning discs won't be around forever. Although that realization hit me several years ago, it took quite a while before I really decided to get serious about a digital source based on a computer. I'd heard several computer-based rigs at shows, and what I... Read More »

Yes, I've used the same Linn LP12 turntable since 1984. It was a big deal for me, buying it back then, for a few reasons: At $1370, including the Ittok arm and Valhalla power supply, it was fairly expensive at the time. It certainly was a lot of money for me, being just four years... Read More »

It's interesting, to wonder about the electricity that enters your home, and the overall effect it can have on your audio reproduction system. I think most people put it "out of sight out of mind," as they may feel there isn't anything they can do to improve upon it, but there is. Just like tap... Read More »

  As an occasional contributor to this site, may I also mention that I "read" every issue of Positive-Feedback.com in more or less the same way I read the TAS and S'phile pulps. That is, not every word, but for the musings of certain personalities, and for others' commentary on topics, recordings, and equipment of... Read More »

Talking About Power Distributors (With a response by Jim Merod) Every time I'd get in a new power product, Joe Kubala would come over to check it out. And always, after assessing it, the same question lingered in the air: when—not if—would we see a Kubala-Sosna Power Distributor? During the five years it took to... Read More »

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." – Heraclitus That's how I feel about most things in life; I appreciate the subtle differences and I don't like to experience the exact same things over and over. While I certainly have my... Read More »

My first experience with an audiophile rack was Grand Prix Audio's Monaco which blew my mind both in price and performance. Up until that point I knew that the material a component sat upon tended to alter its sonic signature to some degree and not always in a favorable manner. To my way of thinking... 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 »

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 »

The importance of resonance and vibration control in allowing a high end audio system to perform at its very best is beyond debate. There may some holdouts in the audiophile community, but there are more than a few credible studies on the effects of resonance on electronic equipment in critical applications. The aerospace, military, and... Read More »

The Duelund Coherent Audio/Tannoy Westminster Royal Special Edition Project article I wrote for Issue 70 of Positive Feedback was the most fun I've had writing about audio ever!  In that amazing project we took a 'no holds barred' approach to building ultra-high performance external crossovers for my Westminster Royal SE loudspeakers using the exotic, hand-crafted-in-Denmark, Duelund CAST capacitors, inductors,... Read More »

It started with a dare. A good friend of mine has always been very respectful and complimentary of my current system. I have to give him much of the credit for getting the sound to reach the level of excellence that now exists. All our late night listening sessions and passionate if not heated discussions... Read More »