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Funny thing. You'd think that there wouldn't be any enormous mountaintops in Newark, New Jersey. And you'd be wrong…. Let me explain. Bill Parish of GTT Audio A couple of months ago I got an invitation from Dick Diamond of YG Acoustics, Bill Parish of GTT Audio, and Joe Kubala of Kubala-Sosna to attend a... Read More »

[UPDATED VERSION with new purchase links for NativeDSD.com included at the end of the review.] For quite a while now I've been sitting on an advance copy of an important Quad DSD recording, waiting for it to be released commercially. Now, I'm glad to say, the time has come…at last! The album is music by... Read More »

Great news! Positive Feedback and NativeDSD (http://www.nativeDSD.com) announce the release of a joint music project, the PF DSD Sampler, Volume 1. This project was done to celebrate NativeDSD.com's amazing achievement of passing 1000 albums at its site in early September of 2016. The PF DSD Sampler, Volume 1 is a collection of ten selections from... Read More »

Brief Impressions:  From an Editor's Notebook In which our hero meditates… What a year it's been. There have been so many products and projects here at PF Central in 2016 that I'll be writing from here until the end of the bloody year to cover them all. Some of these will require a more extended... Read More »

Well, right on, John Marks! Here's a real classic from the trove of audio loot. This week's album from The Tannhauser Gate (http://www.thetannhausergate.com) brings back a pile of memories from my junior year in high school, which was a time of ferment and fervor in my life, there with friends and life in the East Bay sprawl-town of... Read More »

Oh damn!! There goes my new dedicated power supply!

David W. Robinson, with John Tucker Winston Ma at his garden:  A portrait. Bellevue, WA, 2001. There seem to be a number of passings in 2016 already. Sure, that's always true, statistically. But this has already been a bad year for notable music figures dying…David Bowie, Prince, Natalie Cole, Glenn Frey, John Berry, Merle Haggard,... Read More »

In which our hero meditates… Some plaudits where plaudits are due I have several items that have been accumulating in my notebook for a couple of months now. One was a notion for a full review that didn't need to be done, since another PF reviewer (Marshall Nack) did the main lifting; the others were candidates for... Read More »

A portrait of the artist at play:  David W. Robinson with EveAnna Manley (photograph by Dave Clark) The second part of my THE Show report from Newport Beach 2016 shifts the focus (so to speak) from the event, the rooms, and the equipment, to the people in our high-end audio community. As an artist, I... Read More »

Already! Already THE Show has come and gone! Where did June 9-12 go? The first post-Richard Beers event is in the books now, and the results are in. According to Maurice Jung, the new president of THE Show, and his staff, total attendance was nearly 10,400 over the four days. The “Industry Day” was Thursday,... Read More »

I have had a long acquaintance and friendship-at-a-distance with John Marks of John Marks Records, and, until recently, a contributor to Stereophile. Music lover, producer, writer, reviewer, audio designer, and a very cogent, trenchant thinker, John is a person that I have a very great deal of respect for. I first encountered John around the time of... Read More »

Fiona Joy - Into The Mist I have been spending some time with several new titles from Cookie Marenco's Blue Coast Records, all in Quad DSD. One of them was by an artist that I've developed a great deal of affection for, Fiona Joy. The album is entitled Into the Mist, and for me, that... Read More »

"Take him hence; to the rack with him! We'll touse you Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose." William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure The Stillpoints ESS Reference Rack with Grid Shelves (image courtesy of Stillpoints) Fine audio reviewing can be great, with passion driving you through the work and all the costs that... Read More »

In part two, I cover the balance of my Audio Oasis! Awards for AXPONA 2016. As I said in part one, these notes are presented in no particular order, and so there is no greater or lesser in the sequence. Read on… ModWright/Ryan Loudspeakers/Aurender/PS Audio/Cardas/Shunyata/Massif Audio/GIK Acoustics/Audioquest room A portrait of Dan Wright of ModWright,... Read More »

In which our hero meditates… [Sketch by Robinson, c. 1989, during a particularly boring faculty meeting…] So…another audio show in the books, and it's time to share the highlights as I heard them. I would normally have had these out to you all a couple of weeks ago, but lost that time to a necessary... Read More »

Things can pile up. From time to time, especially when I get too busy, miscellaneous projects and notes accumulate. They don't warrant a major article, but they are items that I should mention to you. And this is a brief and very different sort of flash for you. Ergo 21 As a writer and editor,... Read More »

[Joe Cohen is a long-time friend of Positive Feedback, and owner of The Lotus Group, a high-end audio company in California. Joe is married to the Jazz vocalist Daria, and has a deep love of music going well back into the early days of his life. I read an earlier, shorter version of his musical... Read More »

All of us who love music and audio have some sort of history that goes way back into our past. In my case, it was my Dad's love of all things classical and flamenco related in the vast world of the guitar. I grew up listening to Segovia, the Romeros, Sabicas, Montoya, and Bream, on... Read More »

In the world of Jazz, there are the greats, the near greats, the great-but-obscure, and the close-but-no-cigar. It's easy (but contentious!) to list the obvious first tier…my own list, in no particular order, would have artists like Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Nat King Cole, Charles Mingus, Billie Holiday, Count... Read More »