BATTLE OF THE BOXES

PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan In my post about Dr. Suess and HiFi, I mentioned the work on loudspeaker enclosures by British engineer Leslie Bucknell while at the company my father worked for, Stromberg Carlson. Bucknell’s approach to loudspeaker design was to create a speaker enclosure that would eliminate distortions that occur because of cancellations […]

Read More
AUDIO INSIDER

SPEAKERS: It is, after all, an illusion

The center image of a two-channel system is known as the phantom channel for a good reason. It is an illusion. It doesn’t actually exist. Once you realize the center channel is completely dependent on setup, room, and speaker placement, it becomes a lot easier to purposefully do whatever it takes to enhance the palpability of your […]

Read More

LOW VOLUME LISTENING: Best speakers for a vivid sound ?

May need to live with some speakers that are good at low volume for a while, due to an ear problem. My room is 15 x 12 and the speakers fire from the 12 foot wall. I use Harbeth C7’s. They have been a reasonable compromise for some years now, but they work a good […]

Read More

UNDERSTANDING: Getting too close

PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan One of our readers emailed me asking about proximity to his speakers. It was an interesting question. “As I move around the room I find the sweet spot to be 2 feet in front of my 8 foot separated speakers. Am I too close?” First, let me say I admire […]

Read More
AUDIO INSIDER

LOUDSPEAKER CONE TECHNOLOGY: Ever wonder why loudspeaker designers get so excited about woofer cone materials like Kevlar, aluminum, paper, sandwich cones of carbon fiber, and other materials?

PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan Their excitement comes from understanding the challenge of making an air piston (which is what a speaker driver is) that can start and stop in perfect synch with the instructions from your power amplifier. To accomplish that feat one would prefer a cone (the piston part) that had zero mass […]

Read More

BIAMPING: I remember my delight the first time biamping speakers was explained to me

Paul McGowan The notion of using one amplifier perfectly matched to the tweeter and another to the woofer made such elegant sense. Tubes for the top end, solid state grunt for the bottom. Brilliant. That was at a time when the choices in amplifiers were limited. Big, powerful solid state amps sounded pretty poor reproducing […]

Read More

READERS’ LETTERS: Switch mode versus traditional power supplies

A member writes: My new Class D GaNFET amp (Starkrimson Ultra) has dual mono SMPS that are deadly quiet (very black backgrounds), provide tremendous headroom (1000wpc clean peak power-4 ohms), and produce sonic realism and presentations that are jaw-dropping Live…all with a Total package weight of just 18#! 😉 —//— A member writes: Almost every […]

Read More

READERS’ LETTERS: Does the CD layer of an SACD sound better?

A member writes: I think in order to store a DSD recording onto a disk it has to be stored on a SACD disk and played back on an SACD capable player otherwise if played on a standard CD player you would only hear the standard pressing and not DSD. —//— A member writes: SACD […]

Read More

READERS’ LETTERS: Understanding series and parallel speaker connections

A member writes: Damping Factor(DF) is equal to the impedance of the load divided by the out put impedance of the amp. For example if an amp has an output impedance of say0.1 ohms and the speaker is 8 ohms the DF is 80. If you have 2 8 ohm speakers in series the total […]

Read More
AUDIO INSIDER

THE PERFECT SPOT: Your seating position IS compromised

Paul McGowan … If you’ve done your system setup homework your chair sits at a comfortable distance from the loudspeakers. With the precision of a ruler, you’ve tweaked and adjusted the speaker’s position for best imaging. Though we call it the sweet spot, it’s certainly not the perfect spot. Within the boundaries of most rooms, the perfect […]

Read More
AUDIO INSIDER

EXTERNAL vs INTERNAL / Is it better to have the loudspeaker crossover inside or outside the loudspeaker?

PAUL McGOWAN / PS AUDIO I was recently asked an interesting question. Is it better to have the loudspeaker crossover inside or outside the loudspeaker? At first, the answer seemed rather simple. Inside, of course. Shorter wires, fewer binding posts, etc. Yet, in thinking about it, I can see at least one advantage to an […]

Read More
AUDIO INSIDER

UNDERSTANDING: Image height

PS AUDIO: It is not difficult to imagine left, right, and center imaging on a stereo system. It’s also likely not too much of a stretch to understand depth. After all, a proper stereo recording reproduces depth as a measure of how far away from the recording microphones the instruments or performers are. Harder for […]

Read More