Paul McGowan writes: One of my readers asked a very legitimate question: one that is asked on an ongoing basis and it refers to my post about cables. “Help me here. I do believe a roadblock to a broader appreciation of our hobby is the perception that the high-end audio industry is lubricated with snake […]
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Paul McGowan writes: I’m not sure how this thread morphed into a How I built this about volume controls but things have a tendency to just drift in a certain direction. But, I ramble on. In yesterday’s post, I told the story of boiling the innards of a volume control down to nothing more than a […]
Setting up a subwoofer in a high-end system can be darned tricky. Is there an easy and quick way to get it right, first time, every time? You bet there is and leave it to Paul to explain how Watch Now Paul McGowan
Paul McGowan writes ….. A previous post on the Golden Age of Recordings sparked a fair number of emails and one them asked me “what is live”? Is it sticking your head into the piano? After all, that’s live if you were so inclined. Another complained of too much detail being focused on by Audiophiles […]
Paul McGowan writes: The summer of 1977 found my partner Stan and I looking to increase our sales of phono stages and we thought we would try and entice a few dealers to carry the product. Up until this day we were 100% direct-to-customer, something you see more of today in high-end audio, but back […]
Paul McGowan writes: We all love live music recordings and work hard to get our high-performance audio systems to sound like the real deal. But how can modern music recorded on multitrack machines and studios ever be considered high end or even close to live? Watch Now
Paul McGowan writes …… As a vegetarian for most of my adult life I don’t eat meat, fish or crow. Because I promised all of you I would eat crow if I was wrong about putting a preamp in the system, let me back off and simply use another metaphor I can live with: swallowing […]
Ever wonder about the advantages and disadvantages of horn load speakers? Here’s your chance to learn all you need to know. Watch Now Paul McGowan
Paul McGowan writes: Now you’ve gotten your main speaker system in order and imaging properly, according to yesterday’s post, it’s time to think about adding our subwoofer. Let’s start with a fairly broad overview and then later we can dig down deep. Your subwoofers are going to be placed behind and to the outside of […]
Paul McGowan. As I get more familiar with the new music system a couple of thoughts occur to me about what it is that gets me excited about what I am hearing and experiencing. I think the magnification and separation of elements within the recording have to stand out above many others. I am fortunate […]
Paul McGowan Is it ethical to spend time at your local stereo dealer and then buy online at a lower price? This question is at the core of the situation dealers and customers find themselves in today and you might be surprised at Paul’s answer. Watch Now
Paul McGowan writes: Years ago, there were mostly passive subs, but over time this changed. Modern subwoofers are internally amplified. So it might seem intuitive to connect them as you would any power amplifier, with an interconnect to the preamp or DAC. This works, but would not be my first choice. The problem with cables and […]
Paul McGowan Engineers don’t yet know how to measure all we can hear on a resolving stereo system but we know a lot. What are the measurements that tell us what sounds good and what does not? Watch Now ▸
We hear the term “resolution” referred to a lot in high-end audio but what exactly does it mean? How can it be achieved? And is it even desirable? Watch Now Paul McGowan
Paul McGowan …… When I first started PS Audio some 40 years ago, times were tough. The company was definitely a labor of love, one we not only didn’t make any money at, but instead, invested every nickel we had (and didn’t have) just to keep the dream alive. One of my regrets was selling […]
Paul McGowan writes: We all like the idea of getting something without having to pay a penalty: that free sample at the market, a kind gesture, a door being opened when your arms are full. Closer to home, more digital audio information than we started with. When we upsample a 44.1kHz 16-bit file to a […]
Paul McGowan: Mark Waldrup of AIX Records, Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast, Keith Johnson of Reference, Bruce Leek of Studio in the Forest, Peter McGrath of Wilson, Tod Garfinkle of M and A and John Atkinson of Stereophile are among a handful of excellent recordists who care that music sounds as if it were live […]
Paul McGowan writes: To enhance something means to intensify—exceed what we might find in a natural state. Which raises an interesting question. Is it actually better or merely different? Let us be clear. Enhancement is qualitatively different than what we generally look for in equipment: moving closer to purity. Lower noise, better linearity, are all moves […]
Paul McGowan …… Recently we discussed how the Frito-Lay company (makers of potato chips and snacks) funds all the inventory for all their retail locations. The day before, we mentioned that giant retailer Wal Mart owns none of their inventory – instead they provide a marketplace for goods. In both examples – manufacturers are funding […]
How can you get more information by simply upsampling? Paul explains how digital audio works, what sample rate and bit depth means, and how computers count in binary in this simple short video. Watch Now
Paul McGowan: “The justification for a great music system is the same as for a great instrument: It makes possible a musical experience that cannot be duplicated by lesser means” My friend Jim McCullough who owns the Cello brand sent me that quote which reflect the philosophy his company and its products are based on. […]
Paul McGowan writes: When we built Music Room One in 2013, we spent a lot of time, money, and effort creating the best listening environment we knew how to design. I even posted a series of videos on its step-by-step construction which you can watch here. During that construction, we were able to add a […]
Paul McGowan ……… In my new found quest to figure out why power cables made a difference in my preamplifier circuit I began to suspect that I wasn’t adding fullness or, for that matter, anything to the preamp’s sound but rather guessed that what must be happening is one of degrading in the first place. […]
Paul McGowan: Yesterday we began our look at networked audio – connecting a DAC to your computer through a network rather than a fixed length USB cable (or S/PDIF cable). The advantages to connecting over a network are many, including the ability to put your DAC anywhere you wish and the possibility of as many […]