If your room isn’t good enough then investing in a wonderful pair of speakers is a waste of resources. Kind of like the idea that if you’re not a gourmet you cannot appreciate fine food. Poppycock. Of course it is true our rooms play a huge role in helping and hurting our HiFi system’s performance. […]
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Paul McGowan writes: Dipoles are unique. Sound comes out of both sides of the speaker. How close to the rear wall should the dipole be placed? Watch Now
Engineers don’t yet know how to measure all we can hear on a resolving stereo system but we know a lot. What are the measurements that tell us what sounds good and what does not? Watch Now ▸
One of the easier ways to get on the wrong path is to build an understanding based on piecing together little-understood terms. A good example of this problem might be explained in my earlier post about dynamic range. Relying only on the measured numbers to achieve a more dynamic recording can easily lead to the opposite. […]
A few years ago when we were researching the PS Audio PowerBase product I spent a few weeks digging into the sonic impacts of vibration control. What I discovered is how much of a difference a solid rack or other means of damping and controlling vibrations in our electronics makes. It’s a big deal. It’s […]
In any endeavor, rules, standards, and procedures are essential. They exist to help us wade through often complex tasks. Learning a new system or technique I find myself following carefully the rules that others have established. Once mastered it’s time to start questioning those rules. This approach certainly does not work for everyone. In fact, […]
While I can’t tell you why designers other than our own like to extend amplifier bandwidth into the ultrasonic regions I can explain why we do. It’s called the Rule of 10. The rule of 10 is a lofty engineering goal that simply states we should strive to build products with 10 times the required […]
It has been multiple decades—in fact, most of our adult lives—that neither Terri nor I have consumed meat or fish. To many Americans we encounter we are an anomaly, a curiosity to be poked and prodded to see if we are real. We both giggle when we get that knowing wink of disbelief from a […]
No doubt you’ve heard terms like class A, push pull, , SET, full complimentary, single ended etc. These terms all refer to how we use an amplification device rather than the amplification device itself (like a tube or transistor). Many of us have also heard that tubes produce a warmer sound due to the fact […]
Seems to me the more complex the system the more I tend to approach its operation as if it had a mind of its own. I often think of equipment as being somewhat temperamental which causes me to approach with caution. As devices get “smarter” anthropomorphizing them seems a natural consequence. For the briefest of […]
We’ve all heard of film caps costing upwards of a hundred dollars and gold plated connectors more expensive than diamond rings. Why don’t manufacturers use them more? Are they simply hocukm or real? Watch Now
Describing what we hear as having a texture is an interesting Audiophile term. What’s the texture of a violin or a tuba? Do these instruments even have a texture? Not really, this is yet another term used to describe something we hear in a manner that is easier for us to relate to. Cloth has […]
As we wound up our series on power supplies several of you mentioned what would seem to be the best power supply of them all: a battery. Indeed, a battery delivers perfect DC without any ripple or noise and is completely independent on the quality of the incoming AC. It would seem to be the […]
Running separate ground and power lines for each piece of audio or video equipment is a smart way to run your system for best sound quality. But are there problems from ground loops and their hum?
I get a lot of flack for my dislike of USB as a medium between the computer and DAC. Truth is, it’s not USB I don’t like. It’s what USB connects with that bothers me. Noisy computers. Here’s the deal. We all know computers are vile, noisy affairs that hopefully are as far away from […]
Macbooks and Windows computers cannot reproduce DSD audio files unless you know the secret. Paul shares with us how to get them through the system.
Do you have a subwoofer or two in your system? You should. Unless your loudspeakers have a built in powered subwoofer, or you have added a sub, you aren’t getting the full musical experience the artists intended. I am not familiar with any standalone loudspeaker that is full range in your room – despite the […]
Paul McGowan writes: In our comments about amplifier damping and how higher damping factors offer better control of the loudspeaker than that of low damping factors, several of you wrote suggesting that some high damping amps sound cold while the opposite can also apply. This observation has merit but the conclusion that better control of […]
In 1972 Elton John and Bernie Taupin released the song Rocket Man on John’s 1972 album Honky Château. The track became a hit single, rising to No. 2 in the UK and No. 6 in the US. The world premiere for Rocket Man was played on Armed Forces Network on my radio program called Underground. I […]
Paul McGowan: Noise Harvesters were launched some years ago and were very popular amongst the high-end crowd. Many are still used today and we get continual requests to bring the product back – which we have. I thought it might be interesting to do a short little series on how the product developed – describing […]
There are many reasons why we launched Octave Records, but chief among them was to add to the small supply of high-resolution recordings as well as to help set standards of what we as the high-end audio community demand in the way of well-recorded material. To that end, I think we’re on the right track. Part of […]
My dear friend, conductor Lowell Graham has what he calls his 30-second rule. “If something does not grab me in in the first 30 seconds of listening, I do not continue. That can be of compositional value, recording, performance and is certainly the combination of all those attributes.” Now that’s pretty sound advice though at first I […]
At first glance, it is not clear to us why an oversized power supply sounds better, or one cable sonically outperforms another. This is because not everything is obvious. It helps to take some things on faith (at least for the briefest of moments). Faith for most of us comes only with great difficulty. We […]
Might as well go for broke. This post will focus on 4Ω vs. 8Ω speakers and varying impedances with frequency of those speakers. First a bit of a refresher. It is a misnomer to think that 4Ω speakers take more power than 8Ω speakers. They do not. Loudspeakers are rated according to their sensitivity: how […]