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David W. Robinson: a Portrait in Winter, 2020. (Photograph by John Robinson; image processing by David W. Robinson) Switching my attention briefly to high-end headphones, with three of them in my queue to write up… Headphones. I do love excellent headphones…always have. Since my high school days in Walnut Creek, CA, every opportunity I had... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor lighting a contemplative stick:  a portrait. Spring, 2021, Happy Valley, OR. (Photograph by John Robinson; image processing by Ye Olde Himself.) The past year…another year of the plague…has been a very tragic time for humankind in general, and quite strange here at PF Central. I've known very many who've been seriously ill... Read More »

Dan Zimmerman:  a portrait of an artist and musician. Happy Valley, 2019. (Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) Why was it so easy to stare at the tube? Maybe it's because normal life felt like it was too much, felt like it kept adding something to the mix before you could adapt to... Read More »

FYI, Roger Skoff is the founder and President of RSX Technologies, and the former founder and President of XLO Cables, a name well known to many. He knows whereof he speaks…. Michael Riley (known to his friends as just "Riley"), was one of my co-writers in the early days at Sounds Like...Magazine, the first audio... Read More »

Norman Varney of AV RoomService Ltd. has joined Positive Feedback as a Senior Technical Editor as of Issue 113. His expertise in his field of audio acoustics and experience in the field makes him a helpful voice in our creative community for the audio arts. As has been our wont from the beginning of PF,... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor in contemplation, pipe in hand, Happy Valley (portrait by John Robinson; image processing by David W. Robinson) Wolf Audio's Alpha 3SX with its iPhone-based control interface Time to say it again:  we are in the golden age of high-end audio. I cannot think of a single category of "performance audio" that isn't... Read More »

Roger Skoff agrees with Porgy and Bess's character Sportin' Life about some Hi-Fi issues Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. It allows us to recall, honor, and enshrine the most cherished parts of the past while overlooking the less pleasant ones entirely. To the mind's eye (or to the ears of some audiophiles), the past is paradise.... Read More »

When I started writing music reviews for Positive Feedback, David gave me the brief to focus on high resolution DSD and DXD recordings. I think this was his way of challenging me to make the transition from an analog-only vinylholic to this new digital audio world into which I'd been plunged. And, so, I've found... Read More »

Dr. David W. Robinson, in contemplation with cigar. Happy Valley, Summer, 2021. (Photograph by John Robinson; image processing by Robinson) One of the high-end audio events that I attend every year is the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society's Gala. Held for years now at the Holiday Inn at Buena Park, CA, the LAOCAS's... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about why it costs so much to get less Roger Skoff is the former CEO and Lead Designer for XLO Cables. Nowadays, he captains RSX Technologies, a new high-end cable company in southern California. Words are cheap. If you just want to hear the words of a song, even a kid's "crystal... Read More »

Beginning at the end of 2003, PF established its first annual awards for fine audio. The Brutus Award was established for the best that David Robinson and Dave and Carol Clark had heard in their own listening rooms during that year. You can think of it as our equivalent of an "Editors' Choice" award. The Gizmo Award,... Read More »

Part 1: TECHNOLOGY Or why a recording is not a document and what does it mean DIGITAL SOUND RECORDING  – method of preserving sound in which audio signals are transformed into a series of pulses that correspond to patterns of binary digits (i.e., 0's and 1's) and are recorded as such on the surface of... Read More »

Drawing by Dan Zimmerman Very sad news today. I received a phone call from Mike Spurlock, of the olden days of the Oregon Triode Society, notifying me that our dear friend and colleague, John Pearsall, has passed away, aged somewhere in the 80s. He didn't have many details, but said that he had been told... Read More »

Greetings friends, I hope you are doing well. I know there's a lot of Leben HiFi Stereo Company fans out there, and today I want to tell the Leben fans in the audience about the rather rare and exotic Leben CS-300F vacuum tube integrated amplifier (photo below). Over the years, I've either owned or written... Read More »

Louis Desjardins and David W. Robinson:  a moment. (Photograph by Bill Parish; image processing by David W. Robinson) You know, I just knew that Louis Desjardins was up to something. Last spring, I got a very excited Facetime call from him, talking about a discovery that he had made. No, make that "talking about The... Read More »

Up the Long Ladder Maurice Jeffries at GTT Audio:  a portrait. Long Valley, NJ, 2021 I won't rehash here either the science behind KRONOS Audio's remarkable line of turntables, or the engineering insights that led Louis Desjardin, the turntable design world's current enfant terrible, to pursue his revolutionary approach to turntable design. Instead, I'll begin... Read More »

Greg Weaver, a fresco portrait. Chicago, 2018 (photograph and fresco image processing by David W. Robinson) It should come as no real surprise that paradigm shifts in the performance capabilities of hyper-audio gear come rarely. In my fifty-plus years in and around this industry, I have witnessed scant few. The first came in the early... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about what we all strive for in the reproduction of our music with our systems. Roger Skoff is the founder and president of RSX Technologies, a high-end cable company, and the former founder and president of XLO. Have you ever really heard live music? Before you answer, consider this:  If you went... Read More »

It was Sunday afternoon and we were home after church. Dad had worked hard all week on his sermon, and now that the morning service was over, he just wanted to rest. He went into a little room next to the dining area, drew the curtains, turned on the television, and sank back onto the... Read More »