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John Marks is a multidisciplinary generalist and a lifelong audio hobbyist. He was educated at Brown University and Vanderbilt Law School. He has worked as a music educator, recording engineer, classical-music record producer and label executive, and as a music and audio-equipment journalist. He was a columnist for The Absolute Sound, and also for Stereophile magazine. His consulting... Read More »

Automotive journalist, amateur endurance-car racer, musician and music lover Jack Baruth challenged our mutual friend John Marks to come up with a list of the most frequently over-programmed pieces for symphony orchestra. And then, for each "War Horse" composition, come up with a "Delightful Discovery, Dark Horse" piece. John's answers ran in two articles published... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about your system and the state of our hobby I was talking recently with a friend of mine (also a HiFi Crazy, also in the Industry) about the future of our hobby, and we came to one of those "forehead-slapper" moments—you know, when something finally occurs to you that should have been... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor enjoying a cigar and Single Malt at Tiberias, Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret), Israel, 2022. (Photograph by John Robinson; image processing by Ye Olde Editor himself.) A keyboard can be a piano. "It is the artist who, more than other men, is able to create something out of nothing. A whole artistic work... Read More »

Watch out. This is going to be a bit of a rant. I begin to cringe every time I read/hear from audiophiles: Was it made from the master tape? Or..., It can't possibly sound very good—it wasn't from the master tape. Yes, I'm talking about reissues. And, yes, I'm talking about audiophiles being brain-washed into... Read More »

Roger Skoff at the LAOC Audio Society Gala, 2024 (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) Roger Skoff writes about the cost of building a system On one of the audiophile groups on Facebook, I just read a post where some guy wrote in and said he's got a turntable that cost whatever number... Read More »

An Affirmation of the Concept of Grace I can already envision the angry Comments: Herr Doktor Marks: We hereby award you the Prize for the Most Completely Outrageous Clickbait Trash-Post of the Week! I reply: Nicht so schnell! Please read my headline carefully. I am not claiming that the Grateful Dead were a "Christian" rock band,... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about a game that could save a valuable part of our culture... As many of you probably know by now, I like and listen to just about every kind of music: everything from opera to Tuvan Throat-singing, to Mexican Rancheras, to Russian folk songs (which are just like Mexican music in that... Read More »

Another year, another Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society Gala weekend. Early December once again. Been doing these for a long time, now...over the past number of revolutions around the Sun, chairing the LAOC Audiophile Recording of the Year Awards (ARYA). 2024 was another trip to LA for this event; my photographs and brief... Read More »

Roger Skoff: a moment. Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society Gala. Buena Park, CA, 2024 (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) Roger Skoff writes about glad tidings from HiFi Land...  Happy Holidays! Now's the time to enjoy family, good food, good friends, and good music, played in great sound. But, even now,... Read More »

Beginning at the end of 2003, Positive Feedback established its first annual awards for fine audio. The Brutus Award was established for the best that David Robinson and Dave and Carol Clark had heard in their own listening rooms during that year. You can think of it as our equivalent of an "Editors' Choice" award. The... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about why things cost what they do In the first part of this article, I wrote about how pricing works, using not only our own industry but others for illustration. I explained that this article is not intended to replace an economics text, but to just touch on, and state in language... Read More »

Greetings, friends, I hope you are doing well.  The M6 RIAA phono preamplifier is the latest in the Audio Note (UK) series of articles here at Positive Feedback, and like the title says, the M6 is "next level" in performance. "Next level" is a phrase that gets tossed about casually to describe impressive performance that... Read More »

Pastor Dave Robinson and Bill Parish with the Vivid Audio Moya M1 Loudspeaker A little about myself: This is a very brief review of the experience of the reference system with Vivid Audio M1 by Pastor Dave Robinson, a musician with a degree in music, an author, performer, and music director. I recorded at Capitol... Read More »

Roger Skoff, a portrait, Orange County, CA, 2023 (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) Roger Skoff writes about why things cost what they do Like everything else, the cost of HiFi gear has escalated over the last few years. Some might say that that's just because the whole world is caught in an... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor the seeker:  A moment in Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Israel, 2022 (photograph by John Robinson). Well, actually from Long Valley, NJ, the home base of Bill Parish and GTT Audio.  Because there's significant news from that site. Those of you who have been following my reviews, photo essays, and commentary over the years, you... Read More »

Dean Waters with Cigar:  a study. 2023 Pacific Audio Fest, Seatac, WA (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) Throughout our lives we encounter special moments that are so transformative that we know that we will always remember exactly where we were and what we were doing the moment they occur. If you're old enough,... Read More »

Harold Tichenor continues his series of articles on reel-to-reel tape in this article on restoration copies. Dr. David W. Robinson, Editor-in-Chief Harold Tichenor at work on a RTR setup... Restoration copies are made from tapes that are deteriorating through wear, age, or inherent flaws. They are the means of assuring that the content is not... Read More »

Roger Skoff doesn't write about sour grapes In a previous article, I wrote about how one manufacturer of exceptionally fine High-End audio electronics had had to raise the price of his products in order to be able to sell them. It was all a vicious cycle that worked like this: In order to get the... Read More »