Paul McGowan writes ….. One of the hotly debated issues amongst designers is current capabilities of an output stage on a DAC or preamplifier. It’s number 8 on our list of the duties of an output stage. On the one hand it can be argued that modern interconnects placed between the DAC and the preamplifier […]
Paul McGowan
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Paul McGowan writes: One of the least intrusive, yet least effective type of filter for the AC line is the parallel filter. There are a number of different types but these filters generally consist of a single or group of capacitors across the hot and neutral. Placing a capacitor across the hot and neutral does […]
Paul McGowan: Thanks to reader John McRee for suggesting the title of today’s post. Yesterday we learned we need 8 times more power to reproduce speech than we do sine waves – which may then surprise people that loudspeaker manufacturers continue to use sine waves as a basis for their efficiency measurements. It certainly surprises […]
Paul McGowan writes: I promised yesterday we’d start to learn what Crest Factor is and how it applies to headroom in an amplifier. While understanding this concept isn’t all that important to making your amplifier power decision, getting a basic understanding of how it all works and why is probably useful for most of us […]
Paul McGowan writes: Have you ever wondered why there are so many different sample rates and why? The compact disc samples at 44.1kHz/16 bits. But then there’s these other rates like 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.4kHz, 192kHz. Wow, that’s a lot and the spacing doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. How did we get […]
Paul McGowan writes: Getting the midbass right in a system is something many of us overlook in loudspeaker setup, focusing instead on the low bass. I have seen this time and time again and the reason we do this is two fold: rooms are tough on the low bass levels requiring a lot of speaker […]
Paul McGowan writes: Now here’s an interesting term. Congested would normally apply to a health issue one might have but in audio terms it describes the way something might sound when it gets bunched up. It’s funny how we use some health terms like congested or constipated to describe the way something sounds. Stiff, unmoving, […]
Paul McGowan writes: The word passion has a number of definitions but the one I like the best comes from the Urban Dictionary: “Passion is when you put more energy into something than is required to do it. It is more than just enthusiasm or excitement, passion is ambition that is materialized into action to […]
Paul McGowan writes: A good friend of many years is in town for a few days and we’ve been discussing high-end audio, products, the marketplace, etc. He’s been spending time in our facilities and sees the extraordinary effort that goes into designing some of our products: the months of hard work it takes to get […]
Paul McGowan writes: I was set to move onward in our explanation of the output analog stage of a DAC or preamp but one of my readers asked me to explain output impedance which I mentioned a few days ago. This is a subject that folks should understand at least at some level because so […]
Paul McGowan writes: I suppose the term “headroom” must have come about in response to tall people trying to make sure there’s enough room for their heads to go through a doorway or fit into a carriage. Makes sense anyway. In audio, headroom means that there’s enough space to amplify music without running into the […]
Robert Deutsch: In the best of all possible worlds, AC supplied by wall receptacles would be a precise, unvarying 120V: a pure 60Hz sinewave with no distortion or other frequencies riding on it. Within the limit set by the circuit breaker, this flow of current would respond instantly to any demands placed on it by […]
John Sciacca writes as follows: To put it simply, PS Audio’s PerfectWave DAC produced the most significant improvement of any audio component I’ve ever added to my system. Even when I listened with my 15-year-old CD player as a source, the sound was revelatory. Budget permitting, I’d recommend going all in and swallowing the […]
Paul McGowan writes: My friend Seth writes: “Mid-Fi is what we call a system that’s more reliable than the very high-end, closer to the juiciest part of the price/performance curve and sounds fabulous. Mid-Fi owners understand that swapping out anything to go to the next level means that they will be either giving up reliability […]
Paul McGowan writes: Several of you asked me why I was so interested in a 20+ year old pair of loudspeakers that I would sell everything in the listening room to get it and what makes this speaker so special? This giant loudspeaker has a number of charms but perhaps the biggest for me is […]
Paul McGowan writes: I would imagine the canon shots on Tchaikovsky’s 1812 might sound more like the banging of pots on a B&W Zepplin, or a pair of bookshelf speakers. Big music should be honored by full range gear. Conversely, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, or Red Norvo sound right at home on small kit. If […]
Paul McGowan writes ….. I have never understood the purpose of speaker stands for small two-way loudspeakers. If you’re not going to use them on a shelf, as intended, what sense do they make? A small speaker box struggles with bass—it’s just physics. Sacrificing music’s full range for a small box only makes sense in […]
Brian Bloom writes ….. I am a firm believer in comparison testing. It is easy to say a product is good or bad, but without taking into account similar items (especially in the same price bracket) it is much less meaningful. Not only does it help in eliminating careless subjective opinions (hopefully), but it also […]
Several Consumer Electronics Shows ago I remember seeing the PS Audio PerfectWave DAC in a very early stage of its development. If I’m not mistaken the front color display was actually an iPod screen placed in the front window of the chassis. Most high end audio focussed show goers had no clue what PS Audio […]
Paul McGowan: No, I wasn’t thinking of starting a riot or fueling controversy with that headline. My goal is simple enough. Let’s start looking at what we know matters and what we suspect does not. For example, does THD matter? The answer is not a simple one. Books could be written on the subject. But, […]
Paul McGowan writes ….. Just about everything Google does is free. Google search, Docs, Gmail, maps, Earth, and so on. In fact, one of the coolest apps I have ever used is Google Translate. And it’s free. Dining at an Italian, French, or Chinese restaurant and can’t read the menu? Open the app, click on […]
Paul McGowan writes ….. Visiting audio clubs, dealers, trade shows and people’s homes is illuminating to me. I am always learning. Recently I sat in front of a dealer’s high-end demo system and was amazed at how wrong the image was. The entire presentation of the music was between my seating position and the loudspeakers: […]
Paul McGowan writes ….. Recently I explained the real problem in using a direct coupled product like a power amp or preamp is not the DC they produce, which is minimal at best, but how these products handle DC from OTHER products. If the designer has built the classic “DC to light” amplifier, you risk […]
Paul McGowan writes ….. Change can be tough for me, especially when the means to an end make no sense. Like green pens on CD edges, demagnetizers, magic stones, voodoo dots, resonators aligning the earth to my stereo system. Ideas presented to me that I cannot make sense of get put on hold. Sometimes indefinitely. […]