Paul McGowan / PS AUDIO While emailing back and forth with several new members of PS Audio’s HiFi Family it became apparent they weren’t aware of our podcast, Ohm’s Law. In fact, turns out they had yet to everlisten to a podcast of any kind. This is foreign to me. I listen to podcasts daily and find […]
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Paul McGowan / PS AUDIO Over on the PS Audio forums, there’s a thread about cable lifters. You can read it by clicking this link. Elevating the speaker cables off the floor works to improve the sound. Should you run out and grab a set of cable lifters today? Much depends on the state of your […]
Paul McGowan / PS AUDIO If we believe analog is superior to digital or vice versa, we tend to gravitate toward other groups that believe the same thing. It seems true in politics, stereos, cars, and perhaps even stamp collecting. We’re looking for affirmational support that we made the right choice. Newbies to our hobby […]
Paul McGowan / PS AUDIO In yesterday’s post, I gave a bit of background on our path at PS Audio of increasing power transformer sizing. Quite by accident, we had found that oversizing the power transformers in our products delivered audibly superior performance. It was the increased wire gauge with its subsequent lowering of impedance that […]
Paul McGowan / PS AUDIO It doesn’t take long to figure out the importance of AC power, and perhaps no device can better demonstrate the advantages of perfect AC than a Power Plant. I wonder how many of the thousands of Power Plant owners across the globe really understand what’s important in power—why their AC […]
Paul McGowan / PS AUDIO When we need to switch inputs on an analog preamplifier we use a switch. The kind of switch we use affects sound quality. For years we had only mechanical switches from which to choose. Standard switch contacts in those days were nickel or tin-plated while the more expensive and better-sounding […]
PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan I remember thinking to myself; this is nothing short of magic. Kind of like the RIAA. Boost the heck out of the high frequencies and then run them through a low pass filter to make everything right again. In the process, hiss is lowered. Magic. What’s worth noting about this […]
It is comforting to believe that we use the best simply because it is the best. Tell that to Mark Levinson (the man) when he tried to force a change in the industry to the Lemo connector. Or remind anyone who uses on their test bench the superior BNC connector why that same connector does not grace the […]
For those of you scratching your head, a shorting plug is an RCA connector with its signal and ground wires shorted together. Here’s a picture of some fancy gold-plated versions. The idea is to stuff these shorting plugs into the unused inputs on a preamplifier. The goal is to make sure no noise gets into […]
Paul McGowan … If you’ve done your system setup homework your chair sits at a comfortable distance from the loudspeakers. With the precision of a ruler, you’ve tweaked and adjusted the speaker’s position for best imaging. Though we call it the sweet spot, it’s certainly not the perfect spot. Within the boundaries of most rooms, the perfect […]
We hear the term “resolution” referred to a lot in high-end audio but what exactly does it mean? How can it be achieved? And is it even desirable? Watch Now Paul McGowan
PS AUDIO: If we believe analog is superior to digital or vice versa, we tend to gravitate toward other groups that believe the same thing. It seems true in politics, stereos, cars, and perhaps even stamp collecting. We’re looking for affirmational support that we made the right choice. Newbies to our hobby don’t suffer the […]
PAUL McGOWAN / PS AUDIO As we move forward building the new Octave Recording studio we’re learning a great deal from both Gus Skinas and J.I. Agnew. Most of you know Gus, the mastering engineer of some note (you name the artist and it’s likely Gus has mastered something of theirs), and Copper Magazine readers […]
Paul McGowan: Recently I promised we’d jump into Class D amps and how they work – but before going there I wanted to take a short detour – one that a few of you have been on my case to get out in the open for a while: direct coupling. I really hesitate to write […]
Paul McGowan writes: Continuing our thoughts on power supplies and the differences between a classic linear supply and a SMPS, I thought it might be helpful to list some generalized plus and minus’s of both. For this post I will keep the supplies focused on power amplifiers – I do this because there lies the […]
Paul McGowan writes: Starting in the late 1960s and gaining popularity in HIFI circles in the 1970s, the ubiquitous IEC 320 (shortened from 60320) was immediately embraced by manufacturers; not because it is better (it isn’t), but because it permits the use of multiple cable types without change to the hardware. Once manufacturers began shipping […]
Paul McGowan writes: I am often asked what headphones I recommend and the answer for me is simple: I don’t. While I certainly recognize the popularity of headphones and appreciate what they can do, I am personally not a fan for several reasons: I miss the visceral feel of the music as well as the […]
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Darren Myers and I were having one of those classic water cooler conversations (even though we don’t have a water cooler). We were speaking about the upcoming FR20 loudspeaker Chris and Darren are working on voicing. Darren said something to me that really rang true. “A half or even a 1dB change between the midrange […]
For those that read my blog or watch the YouTube channel, it is well known I am not a fan of how pro audio studio monitors sound. Let’s just say that they are not my cup of tea. On the other hand, I am in love with a small number of other home audio designs […]
At some level, we’re all imposters. We fear our projected self-worth—the way we present ourselves or the way we believe others see us—doesn’t live up to expectations. In my 74 years, I haven’t met anyone that doesn’t to some extent suffer from what is commonly known as Imposter Syndrome. Maybe it’s a fear that our HiFi […]
Angry forums with millions of views. If you build a platform for angry voices they will rush to spew their ill temper. One such site, by a famous person in our industry, has millions of viewers and he’s happy about that—not so much about the hate, but the millions. He likes the millions. Is it […]
Interacting with a front panel has always been important, but rarely how we judge a piece of equipment. Even the klunkiest front panel layouts were tolerated if the unit’s sound quality was up to snuff. The user interface took a distant second to performance. As we rush headlong into the age of the user interface […]