Dave Hunter: The web has put a wealth of information at our fingertips. The trouble is, all too often that information is misleading, or even hands-down wrong. Nowhere is the pseudo-scientific babble more fetid and fertile than in the world of tube guitar amps, where players have long sought mythical ingredients that will make their […]
Month: April 2020
Found 116 results
From our archives I’ve been thinking of digitising all my vinyl — somewhere around 350-400 LPs so not a task to be taken lightly. I’d like to use WAV files on the home systems and also convert to 320kps MP3 for the car. So to the questions: Has anyone any recommendations on an affordable ADC […]
Some of the best bookshelf speakers on the market tell you not to place them on bookshelves! Absurd! Why is that and are there any truly good 2-0way bookshelf speakers to be had? Find out the whys and wherefores from PS Audio CEO Paul McGowan. Watch Now
Paul McGowan writes: Most of us like the sound of vacuum tubes on an amplifier’s input: sweet, rich, full-bodied, musical. An equal number aren’t too happy about their downsides: heat, microphonics, size, and the 300-pound gorilla—their ephemeral lifespan. Which is why most customers rejoiced when we began to leverage a solid state equivalent, the FET. […]
Paul McGowan: There are not many subwoofers out there that have servos running them and that’s a shame. A servo is like a little microphone placed right on the woofer that listens to what the woofer is doing, compares that with what it should be doing and then makes corrections to get it perfect. Woofers […]
Paul McGowan writes ….. I admit it. I am obsessed with high-end audio. How about you? Is yours a passion for music? Perhaps live sounding performances in your home at the touch of a finger or the drop of a needle? What floats your boat about high-end audio? And why am I asking all these […]
Quite so! MORE
I’ve been looking at various items on ebay, valve amps etc, for stupidly low prices. What exactly is the deal with this. Is the price doubled or tripled with import duty? Is the case work filled with pebbles instead of transformers? My head tells me to avoid but am I wrong. There must be […]
Some of you may be aware that I scratched a long-term itch a few weeks ago and staggered home from the Tonbridge Audiojumble under the weight of a mighty Yamaha Centennial Series CX-10000 preamplifier. Now, it was a good price (although Mrs. B. disagrees…) but I was aware that it had “a few issues”. And […]
Paul McGowan ….. In nearly every venue there’s a sweet spot: somewhere that maximizes the intended experience. In a live concert, it may be the center, row three. Or perhaps the left side of the orchestra if you like the fuller, richer sound of the cellos and bass. In a movie theater it could be […]
There are a few threads running at the moment that have rekindled a quandary that has long frustrated and bemused me .Why are one man band maverick designer manufacturers often ridiculed by the audio press and vocal public(us on forums) these people often move completely away from accepted norms in audio and make unique products […]
https://www.prosoundweb.com/topics/studio/an_interview_with_legendary_engineer_geoff_emerick/
Paul McGowan writes: Printed circuit boards, those thin copper strips laminated to fiberglass, paper, or ceramic plates routing complex electrical signals are common today. It wasn’t always so. PCBs, as they are known, poked their collective heads out of infancy in the late 1950s after being invented by an Australian engineer, Paul Eisler, in 1936. […]
Paul McGowan: Can we ever hope to achieve a two-channel experience with music so real as to fool ourselves into believing there is an actual musician playing in front of us? I mean sure we can close our eyes and imagine a live event is happening, but in all the years I have never actually […]
The AN&MR team can’t find the time to publish everything we’d like to and so quite a lot of interesting and relevant info goes straight on to our Twitter site. You can access it HERE Thank you Neil
Despite a few dissenting voices, Valves were History. Indeed, the ‘comeback’ of the valve amplifier (which in the UK started with the Michaelson and Austin TVA-1 integrated) was something quite remarkable and virtually without precedent. For while there were a few diehard listeners who preferred 78s to LPs, or Mono to Stereo, there was never […]
Every time I read hifi reviews – and I subscribe to a couple of mags, so I do read a few – I get surprised that they do not review stuff in a way that seems terribly meaningful to me. I start from the perspective that basically all hifi kit is pretty good. There […]
This post doesn’t really have anything to do with either broccoli or opera. What it does have to do with is expanding your musical horizons. When I was growing up I hated broccoli; gave me a gag reflex. Now I love everything about it. My tastes haven’t changed, rather my field of acceptance has expanded. […]
By Larry Archibald J. Gordon Holt C.J. Huss • Posted: May 5, 1985 Stereophile Editor’s Note: In 1985 and 1986, an argumentative thread ran through Stereophile’s pages, discussing the benefits or lack of double-blind testing methods in audio component reviewing, triggered by J. Gordon Holt’s review of the ABX Comparator. As this debate is still […]
Mother-Of-Tone write: We are overwhelmed with information about the technical performance of audio-devices, the newest most sophisticated measurement techniques and the finest and highest precision measurement instruments. But very little is said about Listening. It seems to be so close to us that we simply forgot about it. Two things are for sure: 1) Our […]
Paul McGowan writes ….. Before we get started on today’s subject I wanted to offer an apology as well as an explanation about the hats. I love these hats and wear mine proudly. I’ve been approached three times now, asking just what an audiophile is and the conversation is always a pleasure. Those of you that […]