Paul McGowan writes: Our options have pretty much always involved creating safe havens for the equipment that will benefit from it. Safe havens are isolated areas of power that we build using either a filter or a regenerator like a Power Plant. But what about the whole house? Would it be possible to create a […]
Month: June 2017
Found 32 results
They say ….. The anti-vibration platform was designed chiefly for turntables. However, owing to its unusual properties, it is also readily used with CD/SACD players, amplifiers, digital to analogue converters, speakers and other audio devices. It allows one to isolate the audio device from vibrations coming from the base, which brings about significant changes to […]
HiFi Critic write ….. Listening tests reveal significant sound quality differences between various digital music storage technologies. Article By Andrew Harrison and Stephen N. Harris. Press ‘play’ on the remote control, and the chosen music selection sounds out into the room, sweet and clear. However, instead of […]
They say ….. Automatic Room Correction is Finally Reality! Audio professionals and home theatre enthusiasts have know it for a good while: poor room acoustics can spoil otherwise perfect sound reproduction. Perhaps the most significant challenge is how to deal with standing waves (also known as room ‘modes’) which appear at low frequencies in every […]
From tmraudio.com
Ok, my system isn’t approaching the level of most on here, but it’s a fairly respectable setup with some decent components. My old speakers were well out of their depth and masked a great deal of my systems potential. Now my new speakers (albeit in temporary enclosures) are in the system I have found a […]
Paul McGowan writes: One of the biggest myths I routinely encounter in high end audio is what I call the Bass Myth; “my speakers go to 30Hz and below and I don’t need a subwoofer”. I have travelled the world over and rarely ever do I hear proper bass. The number of speakers that can […]
Paul McGowan: Noise Harvesters were launched some years ago and were very popular amongst the high-end crowd. Many are still used today and we get continual requests to bring the product back – which we have. I thought it might be interesting to do a short little series on how the product developed – describing […]
Paul McGowan writes: I think the answer is complicated but if we boil it down to two simple measurements it becomes easier to answer: perfection level and expectation level. The perfection level measurement is, of course, the most difficult because there is nothing perfect ever made. So one must then set a reference level of […]
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Paul McGowan: Recently I promised we’d jump into Class D amps and how they work – but before going there I wanted to take a short detour – one that a few of you have been on my case to get out in the open for a while: direct coupling. I really hesitate to write […]
Paul McGowan: My little riff on power amplifiers and how I could tell I had a winner really sparked off a lot of comments and questions of where to buy or when it’s going to be available. One of you even scolded me about being a tease without offering anything in return. Let me just […]
Paul McGowan: A recent post covered output transformers on tube power amplifiers and why they were needed. It also covered the fact that IMHO transformers are the last thing I would add to the output stage of a solid state power amplifier because output transformers like this contribute so much to the sound quality of […]
Paul McGowan writes: If I walk into a restaurant and open the menu to be faced with 100 different choices: Italian, American, a little bit of this and a little bit of that I have learned it’s time to run and find another. In my experience the more choices on a menu the more mediocre […]
Paul McGowan writes: Reviewer Eric Neff wrote a bold comment in his recent review of the BHK 250 in HiFi Plus Magazine. As audiophiles, we sometimes fall into the ‘price equals performance’ trap. We fear being the emperor with no clothes when our friends ask how much we paid and it was, gasp! LESS than […]
HiFi World writes ….. An increasing number of people are using network attached storage devices to handle their collection of digital music files. After all. what’s not to like? One small box can contain a veritable living room’s worth of CDs, ripped LPs or high-resolution down- loads – and when connected to your chosen streamer […]
Paul McGowan: If I had to think of the worst thing I might add to a power amplifier, an output transformer would be right up there – yet the vast majority of tube power amplifiers sport them. Tube amps interface their output stage with your loudspeakers through a matching transformer, not because it sounds better […]
OK Paul McGowan: In a recent post about amplifier damping we covered what it meant and what happens when a power amplifier loses control of the loudspeaker – you get differences in amplitude that are anything but accurate. There is another type of damping that I reminded of: cartridge damping. Phono cartridges have a problem […]
Paul McGowan writes: In our comments about amplifier damping and how higher damping factors offer better control of the loudspeaker than that of low damping factors, several of you wrote suggesting that some high damping amps sound cold while the opposite can also apply. This observation has merit but the conclusion that better control of […]
Recording Revolution write: Ask any of the all time great recording engineers what their favorite vocal chain is in the studio and you’ll likely get a list of three things: a microphone, a preamp, and a compressor. Recording vocals through compression is a wonderful thing that I highly recommend if you have it available to […]