Editor McCauley in conversation with Howard Popeck: So EARs were the best valve amps in the world and by implication their designer was a designer-hero, right? Possibly. That’s a bit of an inference; I didn’t say that. However ….. ARC was touted as being the finest tube gear that money could buy, in the UK […]
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Editor McCauley in conversation with Howard Popeck: Can we stick with potential valve amp hero-designers for a moment? Certainly. If only I could think of any. (Long pause). Well ….. Hmm. I very much love the sound of Manley amps. Their preamps and their power amps and the magnificent Stingray. Their idiosyncratic site alludes to […]
Have just been listening to a Linn-amped system in someone’s house and it reinforces my thoughts about the Linn sound. It was digitally based system and not cheap. The sound is all there from top to bottom, and everything was very neat and tidy – nothing untoward, but somehow lacking realism and life. To my […]
Howard. were the public remiss in not giving more support to SACD and DVD-A – or is CD sufficient? SACD was flawed; there’s no question about that! It wasn’t a good medium. It never sounded right to me. None of the players that were available gave the comprehensive performance that the advanced CD players gave. […]
Editor McCauley in conversation with Howard Popeck: From that standpoint then, is Antony Michaelson a UK version of Mark Levinson? Yes, possibly. Antony is a very unusual man and again is the sole occupant of a rare and special ‘box’. He’s very gifted in many ways and yes he’s an audio designer as well as […]
Hi Howard. I know you won’t represent Linn, even though you did. However … I am thinking of buying a used Linn LP12. There are loads on eBay and quite a few of hififorsale.com, but none of the Linn dealers I contacted have any for sale. What’s going on? Linn dealers in the main are […]
Geoffrey Owen: Thus wrote Shakespeare as his opening line of Twelfth Night… More than simply a line from a play, it’s a reflection of my life. I come from a musical family – my Grandfather sang opera and operetta in the 1930’s and my second son is a blindingly good guitarist. As for me, I’m […]
Editor McCauley in conversation with Howard Popeck: Hi Howard. I’ll start if I may with I hope an inoffensive comment that you’ve been around the audiophile ‘block’ a few times. You are I guess a survivor from the old school. Would you care to comment? Okay, that’s true. I started in the business in October […]
Ideally, LPs should be played with the pickup stylus remaining tangential (ie, at a 90° angle) to the groove—just as the lacquer from which the LP was ultimately stamped was cut in the first place. Over the years, many attempts have been made to accomplish this. Back in 1877, Thomas A. Edison’s original machines tangentially […]
Go one, just one please (Long pause) He and I were on a trip to the USA to help launch the Meridian Pro CD. The then head of Mark Levinson systems – ML having been ousted – was Mr. Sandy Berlin who talent-spotted Bob at the show. Mr. Berlin was not an easy man. Not […]
Dear Mr Popeck, Please excuse my blunt approach. My wife and I are looking for a top-class turntable and tonearm and are considering a Brinkmann LaGrange. You reviewed the 10.5 arm and EMT cartridge most enthusiastically in HiFi News a while ago but recently sold them through HiFiForSale. If it was due to the performance […]
So anyway I wandered in to W H Smith’s with the pennies jingling in my pocket wondering how many Hi-Fi magazines I would come away with for this article. It turned out not to be particularly difficult. I took one glance at Hifi Choice, nostalgically remembering what a truly great magazine it was in the […]
I would like to mention an upgrade that I have recently made and recommend it to others. I recently returned to use a Denon 103D that I had bought in the nineteen eighties and has been out of use for at least twenty years. I liked the sound, but it was a little rough at […]
Howard, what’s the worst sound you’ve ever heard? Well I guess this is a bit tongue in cheek, right? You want to know about audio makers perhaps? Too many frankly. Especially ones that should have known better. Usually from UK based makers that have just four letters in the names. However, non-audio worst sounds that […]
Published here previously Hello Howard. I came across your very good blog whilst looking for Linn Sara information. I wonder if you have any knowledge of another Speaker Manufacture? I purchased a set of Principal Design PD150 speakers in the mid to late 80s. One drive unit has developed a fault so I have been […]
They didn’t write them down at all. They remembered them. In their early years, Lennon and McCartney wrote songs together and one of their rules was that if they wrote a song but then couldn’t remember how it went, they’d junk it. Since they were trying to write songs that were catchy, this rule worked […]
Enjoy The Music write ….. For those who are unfamiliar with his name, Pierre Lurne has been an integral part of cutting edge turntable design since the late 1960’s. Pierre designed his first arm design in 1968. He later was commissioned to do design work for a then major player in the audiophile turntable market. […]