Month: August 2018
Found 31 results
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Roger Skoff: In the last installment (Part 3) of this continuing series on audio reviews and reviewers I named three requirements for good reviewing ― the ability to judge products’ performance; the ability to apply some (consistent) standard for rating them; and the ability to communicate one’s judgments and ratings to other people in a […]
Sean Olive writes: Most people would agree that headphone purchase decisions are heavily influenced by the brand and styling (size, weight, color, quality of materials). But what is considered stylish and fashionable by me is not shared by my 15-year old daughter (this week donning purple hair), and vice versa. In other words, the […]
Paul Wilson’s recent column defending the health of the audio industry reminded me of what people have often said about one of my other almost-lifelong interests: jazz. I’ve been reading audio magazines and jazz magazines since about 1976, and people were questioning the commercial viability of jazz way back then. I remember as a teen […]
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It has been said that break-in, the phenomena of equipment improving its sound quality with use, has more to do with breaking in the user’s ears than the kit. I think that opinion is misleading. There is a difference in equipment performance with break-in. Of this I am certain. I can almost always tell when a unit […]
This post is not about the burger chain, though I must give them a hat tip for their excellent (off menu) grilled cheese with all the trimmings – a delight for vegetarians like me. A number of readers have asked why tube equipment has high output impedance. High enough, in fact, that problems with low […]
In yesterday’s post I recounted a story of Telarc engineers in the recording studio control room comparing the output of an analog and digital tape recorder to the live feed from their mixer. To their ears the digital recorder was more faithful to the original signal. Which makes perfect sense since this is exactly what we […]
The loudness wars, or the war against dynamic range, is still alive and well and that is unfortunate. But, there’s hope and Paul helps us understand the beginnings of the loudness campaigns and why they are so prevalent today. Watch Now
Paul McGowan: I recently enjoyed the latest version of Murder on the Orient Express. I’m certain everyone’s seen at least one version of this Agatha Christie classic but if you haven’t, it’s alright because I won’t tell you who done it. The antagonist in the film is named Mr. Ratchett but his real identity is […]
There’s a constant battle going on inside me over two fundamental urges: control or convenience. On the one hand, I want to place myself in a position of control over life’s simple variables like dialing in the exact time and temperature of morning toast or setting the thermostat to suit my immediate needs. On the […]
The weakest link in any system or chain is the point at which the greatest chance for failure occurs. Paul explains which components are the weakest links and has a few suggestions about what to do with them. Watch Now
Our rooms are as important as our equipment yet only a scarce few of us have the luxury of choosing our room dimensions. Typically we take what we can get within our home and make the best out of it. With our new building in process, we’re heavy into the architectural tasks of designing three […]
We’re all on some type of budget and this question revolves around how best to spend those dollars when building a high-performance audio system. From the under $1,000 killer system to the $100,000 killer setup, choosing how and when to spend money is an art. Watch Now
Raul Montilla from Puerto Rico sent me a kind note about an interesting experiment from years past. In it, Jack Renner and the engineers from Telarc are said to have recorded the Cleveland Orchestra on both an analog tape recorder and a Soundstream Digital recorder. They then compared the output of the two and all selected the […]
This customer’s dealer keeps encouraging him to spend more money to eliminate listener fatigue and he asks Paul if perhaps it’s all a conspiracy to separate him from his money. Paul lets us in on the ways to eliminate listener fatigue. Watch Now
Why do the ratings on the rear panel of amplifiers rarely match what their claimed output power ratings are? Is it possible to produce more watts at the speaker than the wall power can provide? Watch Now ▸
My iPhone X retails for $1,000 at the Apple store. That’s a lot. It’s one of the most expensive mobile phones on the market and it could be argued it’s at the top of the expense heap. And yet, if that were a high-end DAC or power amplifier it would be on the extreme low end. […]
Just reading on the Luxman website ….. “It has come to our knowledge that unknown LUXMAN products are being imitated and widely sold in certain areas of the world by unauthorised vendors, bearing the same “LUXMAN’ trademark and all other visual attributes of the authentic LUXMAN product, deceiving the general consumer public into believing thatt […]
Clay Swartz writes: Many audiophiles, myself included, can’t afford speakers costing $20,000 or more, amplifiers costing $10,000 or more, or CD players and preamplifiers costing $5000 and more, not to mention expensive cables, power cords, and room treatments. In this article, I will discuss how you can get audiophile sound for much less—under $10,000 for […]
From the archives Robert Ryan writes: The glowing valve amps, big boxy speakers, groovy turntables and curvy radiograms of the past produced rich, warm sounds that analogue enthusiasts still crave today – and specialist makers are increasingly feeding their need http://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/technology/16348/steam-audio-the-resurgence-of-classic-hi-fi.html
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