Paul McGowan writes: We all like the idea of getting something without having to pay a penalty: that free sample at the market, a kind gesture, a door being opened when your arms are full. Closer to home, more digital audio information than we started with. When we upsample a 44.1kHz 16-bit file to a […]
Paul McGowan
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Paul McGowan: Mark Waldrup of AIX Records, Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast, Keith Johnson of Reference, Bruce Leek of Studio in the Forest, Peter McGrath of Wilson, Tod Garfinkle of M and A and John Atkinson of Stereophile are among a handful of excellent recordists who care that music sounds as if it were live […]
Paul McGowan writes: To enhance something means to intensify—exceed what we might find in a natural state. Which raises an interesting question. Is it actually better or merely different? Let us be clear. Enhancement is qualitatively different than what we generally look for in equipment: moving closer to purity. Lower noise, better linearity, are all moves […]
Paul McGowan …… Recently we discussed how the Frito-Lay company (makers of potato chips and snacks) funds all the inventory for all their retail locations. The day before, we mentioned that giant retailer Wal Mart owns none of their inventory – instead they provide a marketplace for goods. In both examples – manufacturers are funding […]
Paul McGowan: “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. […]
Paul McGowan writes: When we built Music Room One in 2013, we spent a lot of time, money, and effort creating the best listening environment we knew how to design. I even posted a series of videos on its step-by-step construction which you can watch here. During that construction, we were able to add a […]
Paul McGowan: Yesterday we began our look at networked audio – connecting a DAC to your computer through a network rather than a fixed length USB cable (or S/PDIF cable). The advantages to connecting over a network are many, including the ability to put your DAC anywhere you wish and the possibility of as many […]
Paul McGowan writes: We all like to learn new things as long as those new ideas and concepts don’t contradict our worldview. Cross that threshold and we typically recoil at the perceived threat challenging our core beliefs. We might (gasp) have been wrong! We hope that with age comes wisdom and I flatter myself in the […]
Paul McGowan ….. If you’ll recall the chain we described, there’s the DAC chip with its stepped output signal which goes into the current to voltage converter and then into a filter to remove all the steps and finally into the analog output stage. Not all designers place the entire filter between the current to […]
Paul McGowan writes: There are more brands of loudspeakers than electronics by a big margin. If I had to guess at the reason for this I’d imagine a couple of things: speakers are easier to design than electronics and customers tend to change speakers more often than other categories. To that end, there are very […]
Paul McGowan: “Have you heard? You can reduce the risk of age-related hearing loss by consuming more sweet potatoes, salmon, and almonds.” So states an article about how to help our hearing and reduce loss with time. The article can be accessed here and thanks to Paul’s Post reader Kent Tagger for sending me this […]
Paul McGowan writes: Mark Lewis our resident Brit working in our sales department and helping me with the Reference system installed a pair of Anthony Gallo Strada loudspeakers for me to hear – having never heard a pair. He’s really quite enamored with these odd looking loudspeakers and for good reason. I gave a listen […]
Paul McGowan writes: I am going to stick my neck out and make you a wager. I’ll bet that if I crept into your home one night and swapped +/- on each of your speakers that you’d not notice the difference. Yet, in the heat of the moment during a listening session you’d hear the […]
Paul McGowan …… I have always wanted to offer complete systems: speakers, cables, amps, preamps, room tuning etc. One set systems designed to work together perfectly, available at multiple price points to fit every budget. But we’ve never even seriously considered it. I was chatting this idea up to a friend of mine recently who […]
Paul McGowan writes: There’s a quiet conspiracy afoot and something you should be aware of. The conspiracy is one of “don’t ask don’t tell” from DAC manufacturers. PS Audio is just as guilty as the rest. The issue is one I bring up consistently when I speak to audio groups and I am always surprised […]
Paul McGowan writes: Computer audio can be hard to understand. I know this because I get so many questions from our customers. The (seemingly) most misunderstood terms are lossy and lossless, compressed and uncompressed. For starters, how many of us get an uncomfortable feeling when we hear our music’s been compressed? It’s like hearing your food was […]
Paul McGowan writes: As designers, we want nothing but the best in our creations—the finest capacitors, connectors, power supplies, and wiring. Yet there’s an obvious problem with that. Not every product can be cost-no-object. Otherwise, few among us could afford to buy equipment for our music systems. And thus the art of intelligent compromise comes […]
Tim, our warehouse manager, walked into my office loaded with an opened box. “Check this out,” he demanded. Inside were multiple Nipper collection pieces: three 1913 style delivery truck Nipper banks, Nipper serving trays, a Nipper parts bag, etc. There was also a note from the sender, Richard Wiecker, who had just received his BHK […]
Paul McGowan writes: Some of the best bookshelf speakers on the market tell you not to place them on bookshelves! Absurd! Why is that and are there any truly good 2-0way bookshelf speakers to be had? Find out the whys and wherefores from PS Audio CEO Paul McGowan. Watch Now
Paul McGowan ….. With all these crazy packets running around our network, like web page traffic, email and music files, how do the attached devices (like our DAC or our computer) know which of these packets are intended for them? And how do we connect everyone together? There are three elements we need to lightly […]
Paul McGowan writes: It isn’t clear that we even want our loudspeakers to be flat and perfect. There’s reasonable evidence that we don’t. My former partner in Genesis Loudspeakers, Arnie Nudell, was famous amongst insiders for what became known as the “Nudell Dip” a carefully crafted reduction of volume in the critical 500Hz to 2kHz […]
Paul McGowan: I was on the phone with our marketing company Creativello in Seattle and trying to explain what it’s like to be an Audiophile: what moves us, what motivates us, what really floats our boats. When I got to the part of turning the lights off and imagining you are in the room with […]
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 […]
Paul McGowan: I was surprised at the search results I got when I Googled Digiphobic. One of the first things that comes up is a website called Digiphobia with but one page that reads -noun a persistent irrational fear of all things digital. I figured I thought the term up to explain a loathing of […]