Yes, its Jan Garbarek time again. Another of my £3.00 bargain bin finds. Not what you might call ‘easily accessible ‘ – but it did survive the 3-in-a-row consecutive plays on my office system last Saturday by quite a high margin. Perhaps I was in the right mood for a bit of ‘ethereal’? Anyway – […]
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From our archives : Howard Popeck: Not many people know you’re a qualified engineer. What engineering discipline was your first degree? Max: Bachelor of Engineering, Electrical, specialising in communications. Where did you study? University of Western Australia So what happened after that? I accepted a commission in the Royal Australian Air Force where I was […]
How did your interest in music reproduction start John? I guess I was always into music from a very early age. My Father was an electrical and mechanical engineer and used to build his own Hi-Fi back in the Fifties, so music played a big part in my formative years. You’re probably best […]
Gentlemen; other than the Yamaha NS1000, have the Japanese every built credible loudspeakers? I guess you are speaking historically, right? Well, yes, they did. Sony in fact. In the very early 1980s they released the SSG1 Series 2. It wasn’t cheap. Around £200 from memory, which was a small fortune then. However … This isn’t […]
Howard Popeck writes: As it my policy re these mini-reviews, I only write as a consequence of direct personal experience of the product.I sold these during my time at Subjective Audio in the 1980s. The demonstrations followed a fairly predictable pattern. Initially the potential customer would say that (a) the cabinets looked odd and/or unusual […]
Hello Raphaël. How did your interest in music reproduction start? Well, I suppose everything starts with music listening during as a youth, with a father playing music, either on a piano or guitar, or on his HiFi system. Then, my father being an electrician and repairing TV sets, meant that I grew up with electronic […]
Good question, right? Right! Since 2011 I have been monitoring the AVERAGE ACHIEVED prices for pre-owned LFD Audio equipment SOLD PRIVATELY. Here are some examples. If what you are looking for isn’t listed here please send me a private message and I’ll give it some thought. Linestage LS1 £244 Linestage LS2 £490 Any other LFD […]
It’s not unusual for owners wishing to dispose of surplus equipment to expect the highest possible prices. Unfortunately they are, in the main, unrealistic in their expectations. The owner’s perception of value may well (a frequently does) differ significantly from the buying public’s perspective. There are as I see it the following facets contributing to […]
Hello. I am using an Orbe with and Audio Origami breathed-on Zeta arm with a Benz Glider plus an LFD Audio copper reference arm cable. I also have a PT2 which is in need of quite a bit of tlc – I mean to get it working properly – would you expect it to be […]
Originally published June 2006 Just like you I understand that our connection to music comes from multiple angles: emotional, analytical, as a student, as a teacher, as a critic or just casually. Moreover irrespective of how we are connecting we can easily tell when we like something or we don’t Neither you nor I need […]
So now you know my views. Are they interesting views? How do you feel about them? While you are pondering this, given that I’m far from infallible it’s worth considering that although I might be right I could also be wrong: The direct marketing strategy has already worked in the case of Eastern Electric in […]
I got a call a day back asking me, among many other things, for an idea of what I might like to listen to. Something that could withstand repeated plays. My first response was to look at one of my play lists when I was an exhibitor at the 2008 Heathrow High Fidelity Show. On […]
Well hello again. This is the June 06 newsletter. You didn’t miss the May 06 issue – because there wasn’t one. Okay – to set the scene, when I started this one, England were on the box playing Sweden in Germany. Not my kind of thing. I’m writing this while listening to The Jayhawks “Hollywood […]
A collection of tracks that I like, and listen to and that fit neatly onto a CD-R. In each instance, each of the CDs from which these selection of tracks are drawn are well worth buying i.e the quality of the performance is representative of the rest of the original CD. ======= 01 “I Can’t […]
“Blown away” for a 3.27% investment: A cursory look at some audio forums will show that a great number of contributors don’t buy the idea that power cables make a difference in a high end audio system. Some of them claim to be engineers and a proportion of them might be. Some write with what […]
Originally published in 2004 Occasionally, the music really really grabs me. More than grabs me, it draws me into its soul, its character, its intensity. And quite wonderful it is too. It’s a sort of ecstatic experience and all the better for not requiring chemical process to kick-start it or maintain it. A musical high […]
The Who performance on the final night of the Finsbury Park Rainbow, November 1971. This was a classic gig in every sense of the word, and at the conclusion of Tommy as some of you may recall, they sing the coda ‘See me, feel me, hear me’. They, ever in control of the audience cause […]
While working in my office right now I have the internet station beethoven-radio.playtheradio.com playing gently in the background. Why? Because I ‘know’ far less Beethoven than I do Mozart. I use the word ‘know’ in its loosest sense. I can’t play a note! Not even one. There’s a Mozart internet station too – in a […]
Hello Howard, wanted to ask what your view of isolation supports etc is? Over many years I have had personal experience of isolations systems from everyone from Russ Andrews, Mana and latterly Townshend Audio. My conclusions are these: Anyone who claims that an isolation support, in your home, at your listening levels will automatically provide […]
In conversation earlier this year with a sales manager of one of my suppliers of an audio supply company, as always with this gentleman I’m pleased and delighted to know that his primary driver is not selling product to me, although he does take this seriously, but the sheer love of music. In that curious […]
Introduction This series, written by features editor Howard Popeck is designed to, in jargon-free terms, explain, introduce, educate and otherwise assist anyone who is interested in learning more about how music in the home is produced. Thank you. Neil McCauley / editor in chief Preliminary note: I didn’t try any of this on cherished CDs. […]
Hopefully: 1. You’ll agree that it’s essential that your amplifier or amplifiers being auditioned should be as close to tonally consistent across the spl (volume) band as possible i.e. no bass, or mid or treble emphasis (or dropout) as the volume is changed. 2. That the only fair comparison between any two components (amps in […]
Normal, counter-intuitive – or what? If in the normal course of events you engage with sufficient people, then inevitably you’ll get to experience a wide cross-section of attitudes and behaviours. And so it is, in the audiophile world. And yes, I do from time to time encounter perverse (well, perverse as far as I’m concerned) […]
Howard Popeck ….. I don’t claim to be a futurologist. However sometimes it’s possible to read some signs and occasionally form a view of which way the commercial wind is blowing. And I mean the way that wind is blowing, but not necessarily the speed and strength of that wind. My belief is that with […]