MQA has everyone talking but what exactly is it? What’s its goals and how does it sound? Some suggest it’s the devil incarnate while others believe it’s a gift from heaven. What’s the truth? Watch Now Paul McGowan
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Paul McGowan: In yesterday’s post I brought up the subject of the lowly TOSLINK cable, sometimes known as an optical cable. For most of us, this is the worst sounding digital audio interconnect made. Depending on the unit you are connecting to, sample rates are limited to 96kHz and below. Toshiba, the inventor and manufacturer […]
During the latter half of the 1990′s I was busy with a new preamp design that was more of a personal project than anything for the company. That project would become, after a number of years, the PCA-2 preamplifier we released after the turn of the millennium, but during the 90′s it was just something […]
Paul McGowan Wikipedia describes Confirmation Bias as this: The tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing […]
Forty-something years ago we believed with all our hearts that simple was better. That a single potentiometer in the signal path was the cleanest, purest, best sounding preamplifier anyone could build. Today, we’ve come to understand it was close, yet no cigar. Rarely are things as simple as we would like them to be. We’re happiest […]
Paul McGowan writes: So, whatever happened to tone controls? You know, the bass and treble boost/cut controls that used to adorn just about every 1950 and 1960′s era preamplifier? They fell out of fashion in the 1970′s because purists didn’t want them. The analog audio path must be absolutely pure. They fell back into fashion […]
Hello Neil. Can you suggest a practical, intelligent and understandable explanation of the pros and cons of biwiring please? Thanks. AK Happy to help you Mr.K. I sniffed about a bit and below, written by Paul McGowan is the best I have found so far. Just when you thought I had abandoned everything high-end and […]
Paul McGowan writes: We all know it’s not good to get stressed out, but did you know preamp’s and sources feel the same way? Nothing stresses a preamp or source out more than having to drive an uncomfortable load like a long cable. Some preamps and sources have better designs than others, but in general, […]
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 […]
Paul McGowan We relate to collections of words because their meaning often generates empathy encouraging emotion: a smile for the happy ending, sadness at the loss of a friend. Music too can evoke emotion: inspiration from Stars and Stripes Forever, melancholy to Moonlight Sonata, a laugh from Yankee Doodle Dandy. But how? How do collections of […]
Paul McGowan writes …. This fact or fiction question is an interesting one because the notion of matching speaker size to room dimensions is so ingrained into our culture as to be taken for fact. But, some facts aren’t true no matter how much we want them to be. Here’s the deal. Any size loudspeaker […]
Paul McGowan writes ….. Just about everything Google does is free. Google search, Docs, Gmail, maps, Earth, and so on. In fact, one of the coolest apps I have ever used is Google Translate. And it’s free. Dining at an Italian, French, or Chinese restaurant and can’t read the menu? Open the app, click on […]
Zero calories? Went to cook some scrambled eggs this morning and first sprayed the pan with one of those spray oils. Always conscious of my weight I checked the calorie content: zero. Zero? Really? It is, after all, oil and oil is NOT zero calories. Turns out the agency that regulates the measurement standards has […]
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 […]
Paul McGowan writes: Now you’ve gotten your main speaker system in order and imaging properly, according to yesterday’s post, it’s time to think about adding our subwoofer. Let’s start with a fairly broad overview and then later we can dig down deep. Your subwoofers are going to be placed behind and to the outside of […]
Paul McGowan: One of our readers made an interesting observation. He writes: “selecting a record, cleaning that record, clamping the record, starting the motor, cleaning the stylus, cueing up the cartridge and sitting down to listen prepared me to listen in a way that a few mouse clicks or screen taps doesn’t. I’d made a […]
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 […]
Paul McGowan writes: My post about Bi-wiring reminded me of an email I got from my friend Bill Low of Audioquest who corrected some of my statements about “wireless”. There really isn’t (and won’t be for a long while) a wireless anything in audio as we have to get AC power to the equipment – […]
When you see a woofer moving in and out at low bass notes does that action cause distortion? And if so, what kind and how important is it? Paul helps a person make the right choice in speakers. Watch Now Paul McGowan
Turn the preamp level all the way up and use the DAC for volume control or the opposite? Turns out it all depends on what kind of preamp you have and how much attention was paid to its controls. Watch Now
Paul McGowan writes: Reviewer Eric Neff wrote a bold comment in his recent review of the BHK 250 in HiFi Plus Magazine. As audiophiles, we sometimes fall into the ‘price equals performance’ trap. We fear being the emperor with no clothes when our friends ask how much we paid and it was, gasp! LESS than […]
My friend, Gordon, sent me a link to a great YouTube video worth watching. It’s about how music has changed and, in the opinion of the presenter, not for the better. You can watch it by clicking here. The program goes into great detail how most of today’s pop music has been reduced from creative […]
When evaluating a new piece of gear—perhaps that new Power Plant, DAC, cable, or speaker—what’s the first track of music you turn to? Is it always the same? Does it vary from type to type of gear? In my experience we all have a few go-to pieces of music we rely upon to evaluate equipment. […]
My office door was open last night just before quitting time. I hardly noticed that James from customer service was grinning at me. “So, you still rock out,” he said with a touch of incredulity. And he was right. I had turned up the volume on my little recording studio monitors as the fingers of keyboardist […]