July - August 2020
Audio Discourse
Live Streaming in the Time of Covid-19 - Part 2
Fred Hersch's hands frozen in transmission What are the Options? On a late summer day in August, I reflect on how little has changed since last I...
Cooking Cables with PTFE - a Tour of Straight Wire, Inc. and an...
Steven Hill, president of Straight Wire, Inc. (photo courtesy of Spencer Burke) "Many of our customers are engineers," says Steven Hill, 63, owner of...
JCAT Signature USB Cable
Alright, so the JCAT Signature USB cable is one of the better USB cables I have heard, and fits right into my group of favorites in terms of being...
Bricasti Design MDx Board Update - Keeping Digital Customers...
Bricasti Design is still keeping their promise of offering future-ready solutions to their existing customers. From my experience, the investment in...
Ear Wax: Roger Skoff Writes about the Weird, the Wonderful, and...
Many a long year ago, there was (really; truly; I kid you not!) an audiophile product called EarWax™. Apparently following the same logic that...
Impressions: The Wave Kinetics NVS Turntable, Durand Tosca...
At RMAF, evening cigars, Denver, CO, 2019 (photograph by Scott Hull; image processing by David W. Robinson) When you do a lot of audio reviewing and...
Latin Jazz Listening Party
If you have the good fortune to have a smart TV connected to your stereo and are a fan of the genre, then I encourage you to participate in this Latin...
Live Streaming in the Time of Covid-19 with AudioQuest DragonFly...
We are now four months into New York State's pandemic lock-down. The days pass, every one feels like a Saturday. There's nothing on my calendar except...
David Elias - The Art of Listening
Bach vs Beck…is it all just Nature's Noise? I am listening to both Bach then Beck on Spotify and noticed they had a similar 5 million listening...
Sexy Blue Tubes, Part 2, The Sophia Electric EL34-ST and KT88-ST...
It has been quite some time since my last article for Positive Feedback about the Sophia Electric vacuum tubes developed and offered by Sue and Richard...
RADIO FREE CHIP: The Sounds of Silence
Do You Believe In Ghosts? A boy hears a sound. He hears sound before he has a name. He hears gurgling, pounding underwater. He hears an ocean of blood...
Purist Audio Diamond Revision 30th Anniversary USB Cable and the...
A few things on my mind here. Make that two things; digital and analog. Digital as in getting the bits from A to B (in this respect the Diamond...
Cai Thomas and the Bourne Ensemble: "Lascia ch'io pianga"...
Herein the latest from our goodly colleague, John Marks, editor of The Tannhauser Gate, his worthy and informative blog site. He points us to a male...
Hardware Reviews
Mye Sound Mye Stands for Magnepans
As a new owner of Magnepan 3.7i I've discovered quite a few things about these much loved and storied planar magnetic speakers. Hearing them at shows...
Whats in a Name? The McIntosh Labs C2700 Preamplifier
How does one define the word-brand? It's a question I've been working on answering while helping to create a new sustainable women's clothing line with...
AudioQuest Dragon Power Cords
I am awaiting delivery in today's post of five AudioQuest Dragon power cords with mixed emotions. The unease is not about them; it is because I'm leery...
AGD Andante Preamplifier and Vivace Monoblocks
AGD's Andante and Vivace will transport you to the musical venue. Review By Rick Becker With this article, Positive Feedback continues its...
The Akitika GT-102 Power Amplifier
The last decade summers at my place have been hotter than ever before. At 6300 feet, what used to be two weeks of high temps has turned into 10 weeks...
The iFi PowerStation AC Line Conditioner
Go back some 50 years, and the American audio scene involved an assortment of acronyms from around New England: off the top of my head, AR, ADS, APT,...
Aidas Audio Gala Gold LE MC Phono Cartridge
When it comes to turntables, I have to admit that my top MC reference remains the Aidas Mammoth Gold. It is the benchmark by which I compare all...
LSA HP-1 Headphones
In the audio world, a dealer relationship is still fairly common. As more businesses go online, dealers are adapting and making their products...
I-O Data Soundgenic HDL-RAS2T Music Server/Audio File Transport
I-O DATA was founded in 1976 in the Japanese city of Kanazawa. I-O Data is one of the largest manufacturers of computer peripherals in this country. In...
Don't Pass, Go! The Pass Labs XA30.8 Amplifier
During the initial days of my shelter in place, I stepped outside for a walk, only to find a short monolith in the middle of my driveway. It was a...
Goldmund Mimesis 37S NextGen Analog Preamplifier and Telos 280...
I was once upon a time in a galaxy far, far way, an unabashed, dyed-in-the-wool tube lover. The mere mention of solid-state electronics sent my upper...
LTA MZ3 Preamplifier
For those who have read my other reviews on Positive Feedback, one thing that is probably apparent, is my love of tubes. I find that tubes bring a...
Cheers to Lutz: Sparkos Labs Aries Headphone Amplifier
Background In this time of Covid 19 it was apt that I was given the opportunity to review a product from a small company headed by a dog named Lutz....
KEF R5 Loudspeaker and KF92 Subwoofer
A system with wonderful synergy. Review By Frank Garofalo With this article, Positive Feedback continues its content-sharing relationship with Enjoy...
The Clarus Duet - A Journey Though High-Current Line
"If the power supply of an amplifier is designed correctly, there is no need for a power conditioner." The quote above is a paraphrase, of a...
Above and Beyond - The Synergistic Research PowerCell SX Power...
As we who love music continue to respect and cherish tradition when it comes to things like tubes and vinyl LPs, I think that it is also import for us...
DS Audio Vinyl Ionizer ION-001
Static electricity, the dreaded bane of vinyl lovers the world over. It doesn't matter were you live or what climate you find yourself in, static...
Music - SuperSonic Recordings
Top 500 SuperSonic List - Part 21
This is an ongoing project by Claude Lemaire of Soundevaluations "I can't breathe" Eric Garner, George Floyd "We can't breathe" People all over the...
Music Reviews
David Elias - The Art of Listening
Comparing Native DSD64 and DSD256 Releases by Tom Jung of DMP I was graciously asked by Brian Moura at NativeDSD.com to listen to and critique some...
Between the Buried and Me: The Silent Circus Remix/Remaster
2020 marks the 20th anniversary of progressive / hardcore / metalcore / technical deathcore band Between the Buried and Me, and Craft Recordings...
Latin Jazz Listening Party
If you have the good fortune to have a smart TV connected to your stereo and are a fan of the genre, then I encourage you to participate in this Latin...
Notes of an Amateur: Gardiner's Monteverdi Choir; Christian...
…all descriptions of music are quite worthless & rather unpleasant; they are apt to be hysterical & to say things the people will be ashamed...
Notes of an Amateur: Bach Cello Suites by Weilerstein; Haydn by...
…all descriptions of music are quite worthless & rather unpleasant; they are apt to be hysterical & to say things the people will be ashamed...
Ekaterina Siurina: French and Italian Arias
Amour Éternel, Ekaterina Siurina, soprano; Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra/ Constantine Orbelian. Delos DE 3583. TT: 76.11 CARPENTIER: Louise:...
Afro Cuban Quarantine
One of the few benefits of quarantine has been an abundance of time for listening to music. As resident Latin music specialist, I offer the following...
Brief Impressions: High Definition Tape Transfer’s DSD256 of...
Ye Olde Editor in the midst of holy smoke and fine drink... (portrait by John Robinson) Time for a quick shout-out for two recordings from HDTT: ...
New Old Stock - Articles from Our Days in Print
Monarchy Audio SM-70 Pro Amplifiers
This article, as reviewed by Francisco Duran, Victor Chavira, Carol Clark, and Dave Clark originally ran in Issue 2, August/September 2002, so while we...
Our Friends at HIFI Statement
Bakoon Amp-13r
Der Haben-Wollen-Reflex – kennen Sie den und müssen Sie auch manchmal dagegen ankämpfen? Mir ging es jedenfalls so, nachdem ich auf der.... . . Read More »
Our Friends at High Fidelity
Technology - AAD, ADD, DDD: the SPARS Code in the 21st century
"The SPARS code is a three-position alphabetic classification system developed in the early 1980s by the Society of Professional Audio Recording...
Show Reports
Audio Show Flashback: CES 2010
Because the Coronavirus has halted audio shows for the foreseeable future, we thought it might be fun to go back and revisit some shows from days gone...
