The justification for a great music system is the same as for a great instrument: It makes possible a musical experience that cannot be duplicated by lesser means” My friend Jim McCullough who owns the Cello brand sent me that quote which reflect the philosophy his company and its products are based on. To date […]
People / Paul McGowan
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Paul McGowan writes ….. Much to my surprise this fact, along with another—the soundstage should come from behind the loudspeaker—continually baffles people. I am at the Japan Audio show today and watched as two setup guys had the right combination of disappearing source and rear presentation, only to change placement to pinpoint the source and […]
We love our older gear, the ones with the big VU meters, the cool knobs and audio connectors we’ve held onto for so long. When’s the best time to consider moving it on, repairing it, restoring it, or just going with new kit? Watch Now Paul McGowan
And continuing our thought from a recent post, only this time in reverse, isn’t it obvious that just because something has all the right stuff it doesn’t necessarily qualify as great itself? And doesn’t this observation help explain one of the age old mysteries in audio about how something can measure great and sound poor? […]
If you own a CD it is perfectly legal to sell that CD. It’s your property. It is also perfectly legal for you to make a copy of that CD for your own use on your iPod, a server or computer. You do not have the legal right to copy the CD and sell or […]
Electrostats are great speakers but unforgiving at the same time. Any little misstep in recordings can sound awful on these razor sharp speakers. The good news is when they’re playing well-recorded music they are hard to beat. But badly recorded music, even a little bad… 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
Originally published 2016 In a recent post I apparently gave out a bad link to this fellow’s video so here’s another. In the video, when you get a chance to watch it, you’ll probably pickup quite a few valuable tidbits of information and get a good view of how an engineer might tend to look […]
You’ve said in the past that measurements cannot tell us how electronics sound. Please explain why this is true and how specifically, THD isn’t a good indicator of sound quality. Watch Now
Paul McGowan High resolution audio is supposed to sound significantly better than standard 44.1 CDs, but does it? And if so, how much and why? Paul tackles this gnarly subject with a few insights and a way to perhaps understand it better. Watch Now
Once the homemade power cable was finished I immediately connected it to the preamp. Interesting. The most immediate thing I noticed was an increased openness without brightness that was never in the design before. Separation of instruments was greater, soundstage deeper, all the good things you’d hope for. However, there was a tightness to the […]
Here we go again. Do silver cables sound different than copper? Sure they do, and that’s bound to stir up an entire new hornet’s nest. But, it needs to be said because it’s the truth. Watch Now
Paul McGowan: If our definition of high-end is lifted from The Absolute Sound Magazine’s tenet: “the sound of unamplified instruments and/or voices as heard in a natural, acoustic performance space” then does it make sense that modern electronic or multitracked music can ever be considered high-end? I believe it can, but not before broadening our definition. […]
Paul McGowan The notion of using one amplifier perfectly matched to the tweeter and another to the woofer made such elegant sense. Tubes for the top end, solid state grunt for the bottom. Brilliant. That was at a time when the choices in amplifiers were limited. Big, powerful solid state amps sounded pretty poor reproducing […]
Paul McGowan writes: He’s given more to our industry than most and always surprises and delights with his innovative approach. His tiny cube amplifier, his miniature room shaking subwoofers and to the point of this post, his amplifier shootout. I remember back to 1985 when several reviewer challenged Carver to build a solid state power […]
When we set our sights far in the future the world looks nice and rosy. Imagine that new pair of speakers gracing your living room, the new amplifier, the rebuilt room. According to Mark Twain imagining the future takes a combination of things. “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind […]
Paul McGowan writes: Our upcoming new product called the NuWave Phone Converter, or NPC, is really two products in one box: an analog phono preamp and an ADC (Analog to Digital Converter). Recently on the PS Community Forums there’s been a lot of talk about which ADC is the best to go with – and […]
Perhaps one of the most frequently asked questions is how to tame an aggressive top end. The culprits are almost always dome tweeter offering greater detailto the music. And that’s the catchphrase to be wary of. It’s not that I have something against domes. I’ve heard a number of fine examples over the years. It’s just […]
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 […]
Which is the better interconnect for home audio systems? Balanced XLR or unbalanced RCA? Paul voices his opinion and explains the differences between the two and their reason for existence. Have a question you’d like Paul to answer for you? Go to https://www.psaudio.com/ask-paul/ and post it. Watch Now Paul McGowan
Paul McGowan writes: I’ll get back to analog output stages soon enough but I got waylaid on our Community Forums area by an article posted by one of our Community Leaders, Gordon. The article is about how the ear works and, if you’re interested, you can read it here. I find all this interesting because […]
Paul McGowan writes Recently I gave an example of how the addition of two one cent resistors turned a fatiguing solid state preamp into a warm tube-like device. Two resistors! That’s not much but to figure out where/how these would do the trick took nearly a year of work. Granted that year of work was […]
Paul McGowan writes: I’ve been answering a lot of great customer questions on Ask Paul. One of them was a simple misunderstanding, but it sparks good dialog. On the DIY forums, a poster suggested he was converting digital audio to analog without the benefit of a DAC and the question posed to me was, “Is […]