Paul McGowan writes: Have you ever stopped to notice that your high-end audio system has a personality? Mine sure does. Just about everything we interact with has a story or a personality that describes the way we relate to it. Your hi-fi system’s no different. I have two listening systems, the first is my big […]
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Paul McGowan: In the early days of the magazine TAS (The Absolute Sound) there were, as there are today, many great writers. One of the most outspoken and, coincidently, one of my favorites was AGB. Go back and look through your copies of the 80′s and 90′s editions and you’ll see many a great article […]
Paul McGowan: When it comes to wire sizes, numbers are confusing. Take for example our power cords. Our lowest cost power cable is based on 12 gauge wire, the next up 10 gauge, then 8. And from these numbers you’d imagine the size of each power cord is getting smaller, corresponding to the smaller number, […]
Writes Paul McGowan ….. One of my readers, Mark S, asks the question of why we manufacturers seem to work so hard at building kit that serves all music and all tastes equally well. I think it’s a good question and one worth thinking about. In most fields a “one size fits all” mentality […]
Paul McGowan writes: Today I’d like to finish up on SMPS (switch mode power supplies) and how they work in a power amp as well as why we don’t want them in digital source equipment. I’ve detailed how much better a SMPS is from the aspect of DC; we get almost no ripple, it’s clean […]
Paul McGowan writes: I was showing Carl, one of our sales reps, our sound room and talking about the prospect of increasing the availability of the in-home demo. I suggested I have always loved the idea of people taking equipment home and trying it out – we used to have a slogan “your living room […]
Paul McGowan writes: You read the spec sheets of your new speaker. Flat to 17Hz! Brilliant. You wonder how an 8″ driver with a port can do something like that, but then, engineers are magicians. You fire the system up and there’s no low bass. The pipe organ rattles nothing, the notes of keyboards and […]
Paul McGowan: Reviewer Keith Howard sent me an interesting note a while back that really was an eye opener for me when it comes to understanding how loud music actually gets. I am going to reprint it here. I would like to preface this note by pointing out that a lot depends on the type […]
Paul McGowan writes: I use plenty of Audiophile terminology in my writings. Lots. From time to time readers have asked me to define those terms as they apply to what we hear and what they mean to me when I write them. Perhaps it’s time to start a bit of that and see where it […]
Paul McGowan writes: I promised in that post to let you in on a secret method to making sure your subwoofer integrates with your system well and it’s a two part solution: start low and start low. I know, but I couldn’t resist. The first start low is with the frequency. Even if you plan […]
His system doesn’t sound near as good when he switches out the tone controls yet, popular wisdom is that tone controls suck. What’s the truth behind the matter? Watch Now Paul McGowan
Originally published 2016 Paul McGowan ….. In a recent post I apparently gave out a bad link to this fellow’s video so here’s another. In the video, when you get a chance to watch it, you’ll probably pickup quite a few valuable tidbits of information and get a good view of how an engineer might […]
Sometimes subwoofers are so intrusive it feels like we should be adjusting them for each and every track of music. How do we get around that desire and achieve a proper setup in our home audio systems? Watch Now Paul McGowan
In the early 70s I was serving my time in the Army as a disc jockey in Munich Germany. It sounds like an idyllic situation and it would have been if voluntary. But there were perks. One of the best parts of my job was interviewing rock stars like Elton John, Frank Zappa, Mick Fleetwood, […]
When Alon Sagee was a wet behind the ears audiophile he spent his days hanging around stereo shops. Today he is the president of the San Francisco Audiophile Society. “At 20, I bought my first audiophile gear at HiFi Haven, a high-end audio dealer in my college neighborhood in New Jersey. This was definitely not a […]
Tim, our warehouse manager, walked into my office loaded with an opened box. “Check this out,” he demanded. Inside were multiple Nipper collection pieces: three 1913 style delivery truck Nipper banks, Nipper serving trays, a Nipper parts bag, etc. There was also a note from the sender, Richard Wiecker, who had just received his BHK […]
Paul McGowan writes: I’ll get back to analog output stages soon enough but I got waylaid on our Community Forums area by an article posted by one of our Community Leaders, Gordon. The article is about how the ear works and, if you’re interested, you can read it here. I find all this interesting because […]
Paul McGowan: I wrote about a product that appeared to work but unfortunately had an explanation that was so riddled with BS that it was a turn off. That story reminded me of the opposite: a product that worked like magic and had a great explanation. The Owen Bennet Magic Box. In the 1970′s Stan […]
Hello Neil. Can you suggest a practical, intelligent and understandable explanation of the pros and cons of biwiring please? Thanks. AK Happy to help you Mr.K. I sniffed about a bit and below, written by Paul McGowan is the best I have found so far. Just when you thought I had abandoned everything high-end and […]
Paul McGowan writes: Just for grins I pulled out a 30 year old preamplifier from PS Audio and gave it a listen. I was stunned at just how good it sounded. At first I was depressed because it immediately said to me that we can’t have made much progress over the last three decades. But […]
Paul McGowan writes: I struggled with how to write this because the subject’s rather complicated and in the end decided to keep it simple. Heck, it’s Sunday after all and we’re supposed to be taking a day off. Yesterday we covered analog volume controls and how they, by virtue of adding something into the signal […]
Paul McGowan writes: Last night we’re walking by a hotel and through an open window I hear the sound of a live piano. The folks I am with hear the same thing and comment on the fact it’s live. How is it we can tell something is live vs. recorded and reproduced from a distance […]
Paul McGowan: I am always fascinated by macro views – those all encompassing views of complex interactions we tend to think of as simple and explainable when in reality they are terribly complicated and intertwined. Let me give you some examples. Ever stop and wonder what the rules and mechanisms of automobile traffic patterns might […]
Paul McGowan writes: Have you ever noticed how much better your car runs after you wash it? Or how about how much better your audio system sounds after you’ve cleaned, dusted, and taken some time to groom the room? Maybe I am the only one on this planet that feels this, but I suspect not. […]