First published December 2013 Collective Evolution write: Tesla said it. Einstein agreed. Science proved it. It is a known fact that everything — including our own bodies — is made up of energy vibrating at different frequencies. That being said, it seems logical to wonder, can sound frequencies affect us? It would appear that this […]
Understanding
Found 26 results
PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan In just about every commercial recording studio in the world, (and most every recording you hear) the practice of EQ’ing is commonplace: correcting problems like unwanted background noise, microphone imbalances, and other anomalies that affect the clarity and quality of sound. Unfortunately, like ketchup, salt, pepper, and other condiments, it […]
I start this thread hoping people will say their views – there are clearly no answers, and this is pure forum banter, but it will be nice to have such discussion. I had always thought that the ‘the Absolute Sound’ is the correct sound model – ie based on fidelity to the original source. […]
PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan Peering down inside of a BHK preamp the other day, I was rewarded with the warm rosy glow of its vacuum tubes. And I was reminded how similar a vacuum tube is to a lightbulb (I know. I am weird). Both vacuum tubes and lightbulbs have glass envelopes that keep […]
PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan I think one of the very basic problems with people’s opinions on class D amps is the hierarchy of labeling – I mean, as a child if you get an “A” in school you’re pretty happy; get a “D” or an “F” and you’ll probably be having a conversation with […]
It’s hard enough to know what loudspeaker to purchase but with the shrinking dealer base, how does one go about making any sort of intelligent decision these days? Watch Now
PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan There are tons of misconceptions and even a few audio myths growing around the subject, so I think he’s right. Today we will start with a simple overview, then dig in a bit deeper in the days to follow. Creating a seamless streaming music experience requires a well-designed system comprising […]
Paul McGowan / PS AUDIO We often take standards for granted. Yet, inevitably, there’s a long history behind their creation. Take the idea of measuring distortion. Today, it seems rather obvious that before we listen to a new design, we’d want to measure its ability to pass a single unimpeded. To do that we place […]
I often speak in terms that make a few people nervous. Take for example the notion that speaker cables damage sound quality. To me, this is a fairly obvious notion. Since cables are passive they cannot addanything, but they sure can subtract. When a conduit of sound subtracts from that which was intended to be delivered […]
Following my post about cable damage, it occurs to me that there is an opportunity for an interesting experiment. We’ve all seen the techno-wizard’s proof that cables make zero difference. They routinely put a cable on the AP and under real world conditions show that what goes in comes out the other end. I am certain their […]
PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan On a good day, the limits of human hearing are said to be 20kHz. As we age, that goes down in frequency. So why, you might ask, do we expect our electronics and loudspeakers to produce frequencies well above our ability to hear them? In the case of PS Audio […]
PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan I have yet to meet anyone that hasn’t been able to hear the benefits of playing music on a high-end audio system like that in Music Room II. Time and again, people unaware of what high-end audio has to offer are jaw-dropping surprised at how much better a proper high-end […]
PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan One of our readers emailed me asking about proximity to his speakers. It was an interesting question. “As I move around the room I find the sweet spot to be 2 feet in front of my 8 foot separated speakers. Am I too close?” First, let me say I admire […]
PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan Gosh, people struggle so hard to understand that which does not make sense to them. It’s a rare person that can leap from faith. On our YouTube channel, I do my best to share with folks my experiences with what I hear, with what we hear, as a company. It’s not made […]
PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan For many years, the only reference I had to a shorting plug was the handmade kind we built in engineering. Here, we took an RCA connector and to its body, we soldered a wire tying its center pin to the outer shell. We made similar versions for XLR connectors. We […]
PS AUDIO / Paul McGowan One of the most common questions I cannot answer is about matching power amps to Power Plants. It seems such an obvious question and you’d think the answer would be straight forward. But, you’d be incorrect. The problem with matching power amps to Power Plants happens because we don’t have […]
We often think of the revealing nature of a great system as a double-edged sword: wonderful recordings sound better while poor ones sound worse. The idea of a system’s ability to magnifying a recording’s good and bad points is problematic when it comes to simply enjoying the music. This is why a lot of folks […]
When audio signals pass through a capacitor they sound different depending on which kind of capacitor is in use. Why? And, for that matter, what is a capacitor and how does it work?
What is damping factor and more so what is the major influence for it ? Aanswers on a postcard please ..or just leave a simple reply Real question is how does one maintain or create the tube sound in a transistor amplifier ? Dip in (and then out) HERE
A member writes: My new Class D GaNFET amp (Starkrimson Ultra) has dual mono SMPS that are deadly quiet (very black backgrounds), provide tremendous headroom (1000wpc clean peak power-4 ohms), and produce sonic realism and presentations that are jaw-dropping Live…all with a Total package weight of just 18#! 😉 —//— A member writes: Almost every […]
A member writes: I think in order to store a DSD recording onto a disk it has to be stored on a SACD disk and played back on an SACD capable player otherwise if played on a standard CD player you would only hear the standard pressing and not DSD. —//— A member writes: SACD […]
PAUL McGOWAN / PS AUDIO 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 […]
Paul McGowan / PS AUDIO: When we built Music Room One we made a point of electrifying it properly: Dedicated circuits with heavy gauge wire. Had we the time and budget we would have also used grounded conduit as a shield against noise. The importance of a proper AC foundation cannot be understated. The two properties we […]
A member writes: Damping Factor(DF) is equal to the impedance of the load divided by the out put impedance of the amp. For example if an amp has an output impedance of say0.1 ohms and the speaker is 8 ohms the DF is 80. If you have 2 8 ohm speakers in series the total […]