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Impressions: Additional Robinson Brutus Awards, Time-Shifted into 2023


Time shift!  Sometimes things stay on track; sometimes they don't. My Brutus Awards for last year fell into that category. There were so many great products that were submitted that it was impossible for me to completely clear them out in 2022.  I have therefore shifted them to the first quarter of 2023, and re-dated... Read More »


Impressions: Vivid Audio at GTT Audio, a Photo-Essay…and Another Mountaintop Experience


Robinson in Jerusalem, 2022, contemplating on the Via Dolorosa. (Photograph and image processing by John Robinson.) Every now and then I make a trip to visit my very good audiobud Bill Parish over in Long Valley, New Jersey. Bill owns GTT Audio and has an exceptional line of high-end audio brands, each of which sets... Read More »


YouTube Video from Greg Weaver: GTT Audio Launches Vivid Audio Distribution with a Major Event!


David W. Robinson, Editor-in-Chief of Positive Feedback, with Greg Weaver of the audio analyst and a Senior Associate Editor at Positive Feedback in New Jersey for the GTT Audio Vivid Audio launch event. (Photograph by Bill Parish; image processing by David W. Robinson.) The first weekend in March saw a substantial press event hosted by GTT Audio... Read More »


Boxing Match: Bargain Headphone Amplifier vs. Audiophile Classic


Headphone stuff comes up in my email feed all the time! Last week I received a notice from online bargain store Monoprice that an "audiophile" headphone amplifier, normally priced at $129.99, is on special for $67.99—the Monoprice Monolith Series Liquid Spark. Oh, come on! An "audiophile-quality" headphone amp at a bargain-basement price? This put me... Read More »


Nothing Isn't Possible


Roger Skoff's new article is, hopefully, less ambiguous than its title. In a recent comment on one of my articles for this publication, a reader named Michael wrote in to say that he was clearly able to hear differences between some kinds of cables (specifically AC power cords and speaker cables ) but not between... Read More »


Audio Ramblings and the Telos GNR 5.1 Plus+ Active Grounding Box


Telos has been around for quite some time. I reviewed their active grounding unit in 2016 after hearing it being demoed ion the Positive Feedback Hospitality room at THE SHOW.  Impressed by what it did to the music being played, I ended up buying the demo unit and we have been living happily ever after.... Read More »


Confessions of a Setup Man, Part 15: Avoiding Burnout


Frank Doris is a good audio friend, and the Editor of PS Audio's Copper magazine. From time to time he shares articles from Copper with Positive Feedback, to bring his excellent writing to our readership. All such articles are re-published with the permission of PS Audio and Copper. We've all experienced burnout in one form... Read More »


Mixing in Pure DSD - No PCM Allowed


For years I've been told that it is not possible to mix in DSD—that this is one of the major limitations of recording in DSD. Well, I'm now learning from Tom Caulfield, mastering engineer for NativeDSD, and Gonzalo Noqué, owner and recording engineer at Eudora Records and Noqué Studio, that this is no longer true.... Read More »


Impressions: More of My 2022 Brutus Awards, Part the Second


Time for some real fun! I, like many others who work in high-end audio publishing, spend a lot of time at my desktop. Just because I'm working, though, doesn't mean that I don't want the best possible sound in the near-field conditions of desktop audio. On the contrary… Years ago, I put a pair of... Read More »


It's a Mystery


Roger Skoff writes about an all-too-common Audiophile problem From its very beginning, our hobby has been one of tinkering and do-it-yourself-ism. Much of that was for very good reason: in the mid-19th century, when the first telephone was attempted; in 1877, when Edison built the first phonograph; and even in 1920, when KDKA, the first... Read More »


Hand Book of a Hidden Man, Part 7: I Go To School


What Happened Before Before the emotional drama I'm about to relate took place, something happened to set the stage. It was a typical sunny day in San Luis Obispo. When he wasn't busy with church work, Dad usually had a project going around the house. He liked to worked with his hands. Mostly he preferred... Read More »


Confessions of a Setup Man Part 12: Failed Experiments


Re-published from Copper magazine, Issue 133, and used by permission of PS Audio. Many audiophiles are tinkerers. We're constantly striving to squeeze the last iota of performance out of our audio systems, or we just like to putz with stuff, or we're obsessive-compulsive. Tinkering often involves experimentation. And (cue evil horror movie laugh), the experiments... Read More »


Bass is Always a Problem


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 »


On the Road Again: Featuring Greg Weaver's Home Audio System


With this article, Positive Feedback continues its content-sharing relationship with Enjoy the Music where Maurice Jefferies visits the home of Greg Weaver, also known as the Audio Analyst Dr. David W. Robinson, Editor-in-Chief The New Apartment Lounge's Maurice Jeffries visits the Audio Analyst at home for the third time. Report By Maurice Jeffries What would we do without... Read More »


Ruminations - What We Hear in HDTT Versus Modern Recordings


Beware! Wildly broad generalizations coming below...  Interesting conversations get started over morning cappuccinos in our household. Today, the discussion was about files from the HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfer) catalog versus modern recordings from the NativeDSD catalog. Ann opined that, overall, she found the NativeDSD files in our library were the files to which she... Read More »


Impressions:  More of My 2022 Brutus Awards, Part the First


The Absence of the Presence. Happy Valley, OR, 2022. Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson. About my Brutus Awards… For years I have reiterated what our PF Brutus Awards represent. This is especially for the benefit of new readers who are unfamiliar with what we have in mind for this special recognition. Another... Read More »


Remastering - Esoteric Sound Works


Remastering is a technique applied to improve sound quality. It can be done in digital or analog domain. There are few audio manufacturers who also release their own recordings. One of them, and probably the most interesting, is the Japanese Esoteric, which remasters classical music from the world's best labels. Esoteric is a brand owned... Read More »


It's the Little Stuff: Roger Skoff Writes About the Importance of Details


Enid Lumley, the long-ago first female reviewer for The Absolute Sound, was possibly a little over the top, but at least a major portion of her observations were dead on. She was right, for example, in thinking that lifting speaker cables off the floor (she ran them over short pieces of two-by-four) would improve the... Read More »


Meet Robert Pincus - Mr. Record


Robert Pincus joins PF as a writer of music and other topics of interest. Telling a story about myself is always a challenge, so I will start by telling you my name. My name is Robert Pincus, but some people call me Mr. Record. Some of you may know me from my ten-year tenure at Cisco... Read More »


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