Hi Neil. What can you tell me about the Armstrong 521 please? This was a stereo hi-fi amplifier from the Armstrong Audio company and was marketed as 2 x 25W amplifier. It employed germanium AL102 transistors in its output stages and these had a reputation for failure and are now unobtainable although it is possible, […]
Month: June 2020
Found 95 results
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 […]
Paul McGowan ….. A recent’s post on subwoofer placement certainly got some disagreement from folks. So, let me start off by saying if something you’re doing works, then that’s great! Secondly, let me suggest that while my manner of speaking and writing is one of absolutes (sorry, others are driven crazy by this as well) […]
STEREOPHILE: My wife and I have this ongoing riff: We try to make each other laugh by sharing examples of words we’ve looked at too quickly and misread mistaking offered for overfed, bagel for kegel, that sort of thing. All very subtle and dry and Garrison Keillor. You can hear the belly laughs from there, can’t you? To continue reading please […]
I wonder how many of us remember Chris Frankland, one time editor of Popular Hifi who then went on to found the controversial Flat Response and also HiFi Review? Chris was a great innovator and original thinker who blatantly challenged the accepted way of doing things back in the late 70’s early 80’s, and a […]
Paul McGowan ….. I tried explaining the organization of my music library to our chief engineer. He has a very logical structured mind. There is little obvious logic and structure to my library. This was going to be a difficult task. I’ll give you a little background as to why I manage the library perhaps […]
From the archive Geoffry A Fowler writes: Aether’s New Speaker Listens to You, But Can It Get in Your Head? I’m in a relationship with a speaker. Ordinary sound systems just play music. This speaker listens to me. It chooses what to play based on what it thinks might fit my taste or mood, streaming […]
Physicists have sent a beam of twisted light 3km through the air above Vienna. It is the first time that information has been transmitted outdoors using the “twist” of a visible light beam. This twisting property could allow very fast communication because light with different amounts of twist, encoding separate channels of information, could be […]
Paul McGowan writes: Now there’s a hot subject for you, one that’s been debated for as many years as the two have coexisted in the world of high-end audio. First let me suggest that there can be no debate about the fact circuits built using one or the other sound differently. But the question many […]
STEREOPHILE: What makes a phono cartridge worth $3500 or $4000? Pride of ownership? Snob appeal? Sound? Tracking ability? Exotic materials? Styling? Labor cost for skilled artisans? Special ether? Cool wooden box? All of the above? Can you really get your money’s worth from cartridges that cost more than non-Stereophile readers spend on an entire stereo system? […]
What is the future of audio in the home? With more and more money being spent on speakers and clever audio tricks, what are you really getting for your money? LJ Rich examines a £10,000 ($16,000) speaker and finds out why it is impossible to recreate the sound of an orchestra in your living room.” […]
The thread starts ….. My current room is too small for my Snell Es. I will get a bigger room in the future. In the meantime, haw far can tube traps and wall traps go to eliminate my boomy bass problem? MORE
The Welsh band have been bereaved, ridiculed, and repeatedly topped the charts. Lyricist and bassist Nicky Wire tells Andy Gill how they made it this far MORE
In an interview at CEPro, Alan Parsons, the man who engineered Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and yes, had his own Project, says that room acoustics are far more important than audiophile gear. In fact, the interview led one Slashdot commenter to post this fine quip: “Audiophiles don’t use their equipment to […]
Beneath the most unremarkable houses lurk the most remarkable sound systems. Alexis Petridis investigates. In a room off the hotel lobby, I find Steve, a building contractor from Essex, who has devoted his spare time to assembling the most deranged-looking hi-fi system I’ve ever seen. The speakers have something resembling the horn from an old […]
Paul McGowan writes: Teaching art Any competent artist can paint a pretty picture. Any competent engineer can design a good sounding audio product. It takes an artist to paint something that grabs our emotions and speaks to our souls. It takes an artist to design a piece of audio equipment that connects us emotionally with […]
I was clearing out my Iphone photos and found these, thought they might be of interest. I was in South Korea on business last year and killed some time in a four or five story electronics mall (Can’t remember the name). Observe the conversation and/or express your view by clicking HERE
Brent Butterworth writes: What do audiophiles hate the most? Well, there’s Bose. And the late Julian Hirsch. After those two, it would probably be blind testing, specifically ABX testing. Why? Because the results of ABX testing tend to conflict with much of what audiophiles believe. The topic of ABX testing may be poised for another […]
Originally published in 2007 TechRadar writes: Most hi-fi systems on sale worldwide are so heavily marked up that the majority of customers are being scandalously ripped off. That’s what AVI hi-fi chief Ashley James said in an interview conducted with Tech.co.uk last Friday at the Bristol Sound & Vision Show . He also said that […]
Paul McGowan ….. After a recent post I was thinking about the term Separation as it applies to the instruments and singers on a soundstage. I spoke of how the elements in the recording were rounded and separate such that they seemed as if I could reach out and touch them. They were palpable. It […]
Paul McGowan writes: Most of us know what dynamic range is: the distance between the loudest and the softest music. Most of us would always want the most dynamic range possible – it more closely mimics real life sound. And most of us would do whatever it took to make sure we didn’t compress […]
Petula Clark first appeared on the radio in 1942. Yet here she is, 70-odd years later, answering questions about Lana del Rey and sharks MORE
by TAS staff Montreal, Quebec, Canada | January 17, 2017: Totem Acoustic, soon to be proudly celebrating its 30th year of designing and manufacturing innovative, category leading, loudspeakers, has officially launched the Sky bookshelf monitor worldwide. Purposefully designed to capture the broadest audience yet, the new Sky marries the signature Totem characteristics of enormous imaging, […]