PS AUDIO: Balanced is better

Paul McGowan writes … In my mind, there’s no question that between components the best connection is balanced. Balanced cables offer lower noise and better sound. I understand there are single-ended holdouts (wait, we disagree on something in audio?). Perhaps their equipment doesn’t support balanced. Perhaps their cable collection doesn’t include balanced. Or maybe they […]

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UNDERSTANDING: High voltage and linearity

In a recent post we covered the fundamental differences between tubes and transistors and one of those we’re interested in is linearity. Tubes and transistors are only partially linear devices – which means they will not always faithfully reproduce a larger version of the input signal on their outputs. In our example yesterday we placed […]

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AUDIO INSIDER

HAFLER: The idea was originally developed for commercial purposes by the late David Hafler

My friend, Sandy, is having good success adding a layer of ambience with a rear-positioned second set of speakers fed from an old Audio Research SDP1. You can read the late J. Gordon Holt’s evaluation of it here. Essentially, the device extracts the difference between the left and right channels, adds a bit of delay to […]

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AUDIO INSIDER

VINYL TRUTHS: The thing is, we tune and tailor our setups to match the limitations of our primary sources. This can lead to over-reaching proclamations that one medium is better than another when the truth is not that at all.

TAS reviewer Michael Fremer has an extraordinary music system—the best vinyl setup I’ve ever heard. And it makes sense that he does. Mike’s spent a lifetime learning about vinyl audio reproduction and hand selected the best equipment in the world. His digital setup played through that same setup doesn’t quite match my own. That also […]

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PS AUDIO: The significance of the folding transmission line in a loudspeaker?

What is the significance of the folding transmission line in a loudspeaker? My guess is that not many of you have heard of a folding transmission line in a loudspeaker, much less ever heard one working.  The late Bud Fried, from Fried Audio (pronounced “freed” as opposed to what one might do with eggs), was […]

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PS AUDIO: “…… but, as always with any new fangled connection scheme, there’s a whole bunch of “gottcha’s” to go along with it.”

This’ll be the first of a few posts where we delve into networking and computer audio systems.  In prior posts we looked at what I would refer to as a closed system: a single computer with a DAC attached to it.  This works fine but has a number of drawbacks, many of which are not […]

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AUDIO INSIDER

VINYL REPLAY: Back when it ruled

I remember the first time I became aware of what we call Listener Fatigue.  It was many years ago when there was only turntables, vinyl and most people listened to nothing but tube electronics; solid state was just coming onto the hi fi scene and we are part of that pioneering effort. I know I’ve […]

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PS AUDIO: Good stories are worth repeating; and I think this one qualifies in light of our most recent posts on the oil of snakes and cables

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 […]

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