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The Woo Audio WA7tp and the Future of Two Channel Home Audio "It's just a kiss away It's just a kiss away" —"Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones A while back, I wrote that the Woo WA7 high-resolution DAC and all-tube headphone amplifier was possibly the most linear combination I'd heard, particularly for a combined... Read More »

I might as well come out and admit it. I've been a big fan of Oppo Digital and their product lines since I first tried them out, years ago now. I think that I've been through almost every one of their players from way back when. That would include the DV-983 DVD/audio player…don't think that... Read More »

"I don't know where I'm gonna live I don't know if I'll find a place I'd have to think about it some And that I do not wish to face I guess I'm counting on His Divine intervention" —"Divine Intervention" by Matthew Sweet I was looking at the Berkeley Audio Design's new reference DAC via... Read More »

I've really had a lot of fun listening to vintage McIntosh vacuum tube audio electronics in my hi-fi system over the last year. The McIntosh MX110Z tuner/preamplifier, the MC30 monaural amplifiers, and the MC225 & MC240 stereo amplifiers were available as new products during the time period between 1954 and 1969, depending on the model,... Read More »

Julian Hirsch was co-founder of Hirsch-Houck Labs, which for many years was the leading test organization in the HiFi industry, and provided the technical analysis for quite literally thousands of reviews in the mainstream audio and electronics publications of the time. In all of his writings for everything he wrote for, even his monthly "Technical Talk"... Read More »

With my forays of the last few years into computer-based audio, I've really come to appreciate the lowly compact disc. Even though the prevailing logic would tell me that they're on the way out—very much like LPs were on the way out when the CD appeared in 1981, right? I think just about everyone has... Read More »

Cookie Marenco of Blue Coast Records and Dominique Brulhart of Merging Technologies at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, 2014 (Photograph and processing by David W. Robinson) [By way of introduction, Cookie Marenco just recently took David Pogue, a long-time mainstream audio/technology writer, and now at Yahoo, to task for his evident cluelessness about high-resolution audio.... Read More »

Yes, I've used the same Linn LP12 turntable since 1984. It was a big deal for me, buying it back then, for a few reasons: At $1370, including the Ittok arm and Valhalla power supply, it was fairly expensive at the time. It certainly was a lot of money for me, being just four years... Read More »

Been awhile since I have had either the time or the desire to sit down and write about audio—let alone even spend much if any time listening to music. Too many personal and other things have happened this past year or so that have consumed all my time and energy. So most days my music... Read More »

"A smile like the cartoon, tooth for a tooth you said that irony was the shackles of youth you wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh I never understood the frequency, uh-huh" —"What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" by REM As Slim Pickens' character says in the film Dr. Strangelove, "Well, I've been to one world fair, a... Read More »

Everyone takes the limits of their own vision for the limits of the world. – Arthur Schopenhauer DEDICATION To J. Gordon Holt and Harry Pearson, who regrettably missed out on beholding their own antecedents, which both would have so enjoyed reading. Our modern times have been blessed with a copious amount of writing about music reproduction.... Read More »

Petra and Dan D'Agostino are two of the rare ones. Yes, Dan's legacy is firmly locked in place after Krell Industries and now his Dan D'Agostino Master Audio product lines. To say the least, Dan is an industry Icon, but he is much more than this and has much more to do. I think he... Read More »

ALO's Studio Six has been an integral part of the heart-and-soul of my beloved Sonic Satori Personal Audio Lab since its inception. What the hell is the SSPAL? For the un-initiated: I've been working on a range of headphone systems that, IMHO, reproduce some of the most musically-engaging, excitable, and sonically addictive music playback experiences I could find.... Read More »

Most regular readers of Positive Feedback know of my long-time passion for vacuum tube electronics. I've enjoyed the musical prowess and sonic chops of contemporary artisan-designed single-ended amplifiers with various output tubes, like the EL84, 45, 2A3, 300B, F2a, and 845 output valves; as well as inspired push-pull amplifiers using KT88, EL84, KT66, EL34, KT90 outputs, and... Read More »

This article was published recently by our good friends at NativeDSD.com (see HERE). In it, Ted Brady makes some useful distinctions and clarifies some definitions about DSD. Given the growing interest in DSD, and the excellence of Ted's commentary, it is our belief that this article will benefit the readers of Positive Feedback. His remarks are presented... Read More »

Clothes may make the man, but what do loudspeakers make you? Sure, we all wish the fashion police would drape a hazmat pancho over that ratty Dynaco Dynamite! T-shirt stretched tight as tube top on your audio buddy. But who is in charge of equally egregious audio disasters like the ear-shredding "faithful to the source" experiment? What... Read More »

We can't hear the absolute absolutely. Our ears are organic matter evolved over generations of overlapping genes. No two are exactly alike, including our own, just as no two ears located at the slightly lopsided extremities of a bumpy skull are diametrically synchronized. Add to that that both can't be equally sensitive to sound or deteriorate at... Read More »

The Walker Audio Proscenium Black Diamond Level V Reference Turntable Slow train comin'… First things first. Those of you who haven't already read my extensive review of the Audionet reference system elsewhere in this issue (HERE) need to stop right here, go to that essay, and complete it before going on with this one. It... Read More »

A couple of years ago, I promised Positive Feedback readers that I'd tackle a few topics on which I was less than proficient. As an audiophile and audio writer, I've learned an amazing amount in the past 15 years, yet I am inexperienced in a few subsets of high-end audio. And even though I've been listening to... Read More »