Greetings friends, I hope you are doing well! In August of 2019 the Shuguang Electron Tube Factory was shut down in preparation for a move to a new location. By March 2020 the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a worldwide pandemic, which would result in the shut down of most vacuum tube production still operating... Read More »
Dr. Tom Davis has a longtime association with Positive Feedback. He was a very active contributor to the magazine back in the 1990s during our paper 'n ink days and a hale and hearty audio friend. He is now joining us once again, and I could not be more pleased! His writing is always worth... Read More »
It's been a tad over 15 years since The Tape Project set the audiophile world atwitter with the release of their first, soon to be followed by 29 more, real time duped, high speed, 15-ips tapes. And it was love at first listen for oh-so many of us! In that intervening time, the reel-to-reel tape... Read More »
Roger Skoff writes about what's good enough. A great many years ago, I briefly owned a genuine Italian race car. It was a Siata factory team car, built for the 1953 Targa Florio. It was red. It was gorgeous. It was homologated and barely street legal. It came equipped with both two seats and a... Read More »
If you missed it, the other day I posted a review of the PS Audio DirectStream DAC MK2 (HERE) that was prefaced by the idea that is it ever "As good as it can get?" Or something like that. Simply, one does whatever and sits back thinking that it is as good as it gets…... Read More »
Last week, a post on the Facebook group Streaming Music Matters generated quite a bit of interest and a long thread of responses. The post header read thusly: "Is this what Dan Fans have been waiting for?" The subject was the newly Bernie Grundman-remastered, 24-bit/192 kHz high-resolution files for Steely Dan's Aja that are now... Read More »
Dean Waters at Pacific Audio Fest 2023 (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) Serious listeners of high-end and high-resolution audio generally agree that cables matter. When spec'ing the various components we look to buy and install, we also give consideration to the cables that will connect it all together. We tend to focus... Read More »
"As good as it gets?" I dunno know anymore. Every time we get something here to listen to, and possibly review, we sit there and think just that. Which of course, we thought that the last time… that it was as good as it could get, but now, this time, it is better than that,... Read More »
David W. Robinson photographing at Icicle Creek, Leavenworth, WA, during the great fires of 2012. (Photograph by Lila Ritsema; image processing by Robinson.) Headphones…dig it! The spring of 1970. Yeah, that's when it happened. That's when I bought my first pair of headphones. I needed them, since I had become very interested in reel-to-reel tape... 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 »
Roger Skoff writes about an aspect of our hobby we sometimes forget... I've been calling myself a HiFi Crazy for well over half a century, I've seen the birth of solid-state electronics, of stereo (it was all mono when I got started), of CDs, DVDs, and every other kind of digital audio technology. And I've... Read More »
In the last episode, I shared my rabbit-hole experience with Jeff Tweedy and the Wilco band when I first experienced the music as I streamed Episode 5 in the first season of Hulu's hit show, "The Bear." In this issue of PF, I'll share info on several items I've accumulated and knowledge about the band... Read More »
Roger Skoff writes about HiFi kit building When I first became a HiFi Crazy, I was twelve years old and, like virtually every other twelve- year-old kid, I had no money. That didn't stop me, though; I'd become an audiophile; been "bitten by the bug"; and had to have a hi-fi system of my own,... Read More »
Greeting friends, I hope you are doing well! This article is about the Audio Note (UK) CD 5.1x Red Book CD player ($30,850 USD), a CD player that rewrites what kind of performance I thought was possible from CD players and the Red Book CD format. A unicorn is a mythical creature of ancient lore:... Read More »
A Trip To Remember What an adventure! Despite the stifling heat in the 90s, and the intense humidity that would never let up, my recent trip to Sarasota (Florida) was one of my most favorites ever. How could it not be with such gracious hosts like Kevin Hayes and his lovely wife Darlene Monteiro-Hayes at... Read More »
The first fully functional HDD non-linear recording system, or how albums recorded using RADAR sound like 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 a... Read More »
Wayne Goins in watercolor (image processing by David W. Robinson) Jeff Tweedy and his world of Wilco music has entered my space, and I'm pretty damn happy about it. Let me just say upfront: I admit it—I'm probably the last one to the party. Actually, I'm extremely late, but very likely not the last one.... Read More »
Brian Hartsell in the Atrium at RMAF 2005…back when you could smoke there! Brian Hartsell has passed away. Another good audio man gone. Apparently, he died on Friday, August 4, 2023, while in hospice care. My audiobud Nick Despotopoulos got in touch with me earlier this week to let me know. (Thanks, Nick!) His life... Read More »
Roger Skoff picks up the cry for a new HiFi Industry Association Do you remember electric trains? Practically every family who had kids owned one. Even adults loved them, and they could be bought almost everywhere, including toy shops, hobby shops, department stores, and even some "dime" stores. At Christmas time, there was hardly... Read More »