To all our friends in the hifi community, With much heartache, Gary Gill and I have decided to postpone the inaugural Pacific Audio Fest until 2022. This Wed morning we woke up to hear that Gov. Inslee had to roll back the reopening status for three counties in Washington state. This was a wake up... Read More »
Paris, April 15, 2021 - Qobuz, the French platform for streaming and downloading high-quality music, confirms its international ambitions and announces that it will be opening in six new countries: Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland. Now, millions more music fans and audiophiles will have access to Qobuz’s unique offerings: unparalleled sound quality... Read More »
9 April 2021;Englewood, CO – Monarch Systems Ltd. is happy to announce the immediate release and availability of a production upgrade to the Int One integrated amplifier from Alluxity. The Int One Mk. II has aUS MSRP of $9,500. The Int One has been Alluxity’s best-selling product in North America. The revised Mk. II edition... Read More »
Complete Peter Serkin. Sony 19439713872. 30 CD's. If Serkin is one of your very favorite pianists, as he is one of mine, then this is a treasure trove for you. Thirty CDs for under $100. Includes both solo recordings and work with TASHI. Steal of the year. \ Joseph Haydn, String Quartets, Op. 76, 4-6. Chiaroscuro... Read More »
A portrait of Wayne Goins Every Sunday between 10 a.m. and noon, I show up to the Bluestem Bistro in Aggieville to play with my jazz guitar duo partner, "Slick" Rick Smith. Rick is a very cool guy. A former student of mine back in the early 2000s, he's all grown up now and is... Read More »
Schubert's Winterreise, one of the greatest song cycles written, is most often heard with piano and voice. The Ragazze Quartet treats us to a performance arranged for string quartet—and it works marvelously! The Ragazze and baritone Martijn Cornet give us a performance filled with nuance, emotional impact, and synergistic musicianship. Jared Sacks has outdone himself... Read More »
New PST features SACD and pure DSD playback, exclusive Digital Lens technology, galvanically isolated output stage, plug-and-play setup and more – Boulder, Colorado, April 7, 2021 – PS Audio is now shipping its PerfectWave SACD Transport (PST), designed to deliver the ultimate in disc playback from SACD, CD and other optical disc formats. The new PerfectWave SACD Transport... Read More »
Travis, Good Feeling. 120 gram, black vinyl LP: $21.99 MSRP. Available from Craft Recordings. It's been said that everyone who listened to the Velvet Underground's first album started a band. The same can almost be said for Travis' first album, Good Feeling, which was massively influential on an entire generation of UK bands, especially the likes... Read More »
The lapping of the bay, the wind through fallen tree. Birds of the sea and the land. It is all music gifted to us by nature. We use our nature to make music, and we cannot forget that nature exists within us all. I recognize the face in the mirror despite the grey flecks in... Read More »
James Blake, Covers Standing out from the noise in popular music is no easy feat. It takes more than a strong voice to stick out from the crowd these days, with so many choices at our fingertips. From the genre blurring and warbly bass bending "Limit to Your Love," to the hauntingly ethereal landscapes of The... Read More »
A precision DAC that delivers category-leading performance and value March 2021—Ventura, CA—Periodic Audio proudly announces the Rhodium, an ultra-compact high-resolution DAC that offers the music lover incredible performance, value ($49), and versatility. “The Rhodium is a no-brainer for anyone looking to seriously boost their digital music’s sound quality,” said Periodic Audio co-founder Dan Wiggins. “Its... Read More »
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL, MARCH 30, 2021 — Wireworld Cable Technology proudly announces that their Stellar active optical HDMI cable has just become the first optical HDMI cable to be certified as Ultra High Speed by the HDMI Forum. The HDMI Forum Authorized Testing Center has issued certificates covering the Stellar cables in lengths of 5m, 10m,... Read More »
Champlain, NY – April 1, 2021 – Focal Naim America announced today it will be the US distributor of Thorens. With the incorporation of Thorens, Focal Naim America will add a lineup of high-end audio made in Germany to its current audio partners. Throughout the company's history, Thorens has developed several devices that have become... Read More »
Part 1: TECHNOLOGY In the 1990s, the music industry moved from reel-to-reel recorders, both analog and digital, to DAW recording systems, i.e. computer workstations. The Alesis ELECTRONICS ADAT digital multi-track tape recorders represent a turning point in this history. Digital Sound Recording—an audio preservation method in which the audio signals are converted into a series... Read More »
This is an ongoing project by Claude Lemaire of Soundevaluations 166. The Doors, Strange Days. Elektra – EKS-74014 (1967), DCC Compact Classics – LPZ-2045 (1992), 33 1/3 rpm. Genre: acid rock, psychedelia, psychedelic rock, blues rock, musique concrète (in small doses). The last track on The Doors debut album is titled "The End" but nothing could be... Read More »
Qobuz, the music lovers' Hi-Res streaming and download provider, has partnered with UMe and Zappa Records to provide dozens of Frank Zappa albums for the first time in Hi-Res Audio. UMe, the global catalog company of Universal Music Group, and Zappa Records are launching today a Hi-Res reissue campaign on Qobuz totaling 29 albums spanning... Read More »
Firenze, Italy, 30th March 2021 – Introducing the PH-1000, Gold Note’s new premium phono stage. What if you could play back any LP ever pressed with the correct equalisation? And what if you could adjust or even modify that equalisation curve on the go? Or adjust any of the settings using a simple knob without... Read More »
It's rare that one gets to experience a true tour de force, but that is what I've enjoyed the past several months with the Van Baerle Trio's traversal of Beethoven's complete works for piano trio—a marvelous journey through some of the greatest music ever written. I've long held the Beaux Arts Trio in highest regard... Read More »
GRAND RAPIDS, MI, March 30, 2021 – Pangea Audio, developer and manufacturer of high performance, high-value audio accessories, announced today that the latest version of its popular Record Doctor cleaning machine, Record Doctor VI, will soon be available in a with a new white finish. Originally developed and released to mark the 20th anniversary of the company’s... Read More »
Extreme engineering. Breathtaking sound. The ultimate streamer. Linn today launches next-generation Klimax DSM, the ultimate streaming product and the closest you can get to streaming audio perfection. Applying almost five decades of digital technology learnings and expertise, every element has been designed from first principles and is fully optimised for the best musical performance. A... 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 »
It has come to our attention that TIDAL altered its method for identifying its Master files, preventing the MiND 2 from recognizing that they contain MQA tags. Our R&D team is working on a new method for detecting these tags and will implement it in a firmware update within the next few weeks. In the meantime,... Read More »
March 24, 2021 -- Qobuz, the music lovers' Hi-Res streaming and download provider, is now the first music service to deliver 24-bit Hi-Res audio streaming on Sonos. Qobuz customers will be able to listen to studio-quality music on their Sonos speakers, preserving all of the details and color of original recordings, with the ease of simply pressing... Read More »
Tired of having your thousand dollar power cables just barely hanging from the wall outlet due to its weight? As an industry innovator SONORE either works on a new computer audio product like our super low noise audio streamers or we partner with inventors that simply bring a brilliant idea to the audiophile world. We... Read More »
Mogwai, As the Love Continues Like most popular art forms, music is over-classified. When an artistic medium is overly distilled through endless descriptions, categories, names, and titles, the magic is also seemingly stripped from it. The ethereal music of Mogwai, the ever-evolving Scottish band, is an unfortunate victim of these attempts to classify rather than... Read More »
The Silence Between, Pieter van Loenen, violin, and Tobias Borsboom, piano, TRPTK (2021, DSD256, DXD) HERE The Silence Between is a marvelously transparent recording of superb performances of five engagingly melodic, tonal 20th century works. (Well, almost. The Debussy piece comes from 1890 but clearly looks forward to the next century.) In this brilliant recording,... Read More »
Now Available for Pre-Order & Shipping 3/31/21, the U18s Combines Proprietary Drivers, LID Technology, and a New Electronic Crossover Network to Deliver a Uniquely Exceptional Listening Experience VANCOUVER, Wash., March 19, 2021 - 64 Audio, the leader in custom and universal fit in-ear monitors, is proud to announce the launch of the U18s, the new audiophile-grade, universal... Read More »
WestminsterLab is a company founded in London (hence the name), currently headquartered in Hong Kong, run by Angus Leung. Its offer includes connection cables and amplifiers, belonging to the top high-end level. For this review we received the Quest preamplifier and REI monoblocks; the preamplifier has its premier in HF. There are brands in audio... Read More »
Volti Audio Presents . . . “Lichtenberg Figuring” or “Fractal Burning” as it has become known, is a technique that uses high-voltage electrical currents to ‘burn’ dazzling tree-like figures into the wood finish of our speakers. The resulting figures are 3D in nature, burned down into the wood veneer of the cabinets, and then sprayed... Read More »
Chest-pounding, musical bass with accuracy and depth from a shockingly compact 10-inch cabinet that fits anywhere. The miniature yet mighty SVS 3000 Micro subwoofer seamlessly blends into any room and speaker system, energizing the space with astonishingly rich, effortless, and detailed bass that’s all the more impressive given its micro-sized enclosure. Featuring innovations from the... Read More »
We are proud to announce that the DMS-700 Network Audio Player has received Roon Ready certification from Roon Labs. Roon is a rich and engaging way to browse, organize, and listen to music. Artist photos, credits, bios, reviews, lyrics, tour dates, and composers are located automatically, then interconnected by links to build a surfable digital magazine. Roon is also... Read More »
Effective immediately, Franc Audio Accessories’ equipment Racks and Platforms will be distributed throughout the US and Canada by Monarch Systems Ltd. 17 March, 2021: Englewood, Colorado – Monarch Systems Ltd. is proud to announce our appointment as the official distribution partner of Franc Audio Accessories, manufacturer of high-quality and highperformance audio isolation furniture. Established in... Read More »
Qobuz to sponsor London-based label Mercury KX artist showcase at SXSW Online 2021 Contemporary Classical / Electronic music composers Sebastian Plano, Lambert, Luke Howard, and Sophie Hutchings will each perform a set to commence the SXSW music programme each day Qobuz, the only hi-res streaming platform of SXSW, is sponsoring the Mercury KX artist showcase... Read More »
March 16, 2021 - Focal, the French brand renowned worldwide for its audio expertise, unveils a new reference: Clear Mg. In addition to their sophisticated finishes, the sound reproduction of these open-back headphones is even sharper than that of their Clear predecessor. The luxury of Focal products lies in their performance and the experience they... Read More »
MOON’s 280D streaming DAC has been upgraded and updated to increase its already formidable connectivity options. At the heart of the 280D is the industry leading MiND2 streaming module, now featuring Spotify Connect and AirPlay 2, plus Tidal Masters, Deezer Hi-Fi, HIGHRESAUDIO* and Qobuz Sublime+ music services. The MOON 280D is designed to deliver an... Read More »
If you stop to think about it, you'll see that all of everything about our hobby—the music we love, the gear we give so much of our wealth and interest to, and the rooms we listen in—is about vibration. The recorded music we listen to is a vibration in the air caused by the vibration... Read More »
HASSE: Il Tigrane: Overture and Arias; VIVALDI: Il Tigrane: Arias; GLUCK: Il Tigrane: Arias. Isabel Bayrakdarian, soprano; Kansas City Symphony Orchestra/Constantine Orbelian. Delos DE 3591. TT: 64.06. Downloads: Amazon.com (mp3); boxset.me (FLAC); qobuz.com (various formats) Did you know about this Cleopatra? I certainly didn't. Cleopatra of Pontus married King Tigranes the Great (Tigranes II) of Armenia, in... Read More »
