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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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Part 1: The Awaking Late October of last year, a friend of mine who lives in Wichita Kansas, came to visit me for a jam session and a guitar lesson. We had a great time, and when he made it back home, he sent me a text photo of a vinyl haul he'd snagged at... 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 »

We are blessed once again by some fine reflections from our good friend and brother, John Marks, he of The Tannhauser Gate fame. This time around we read his thoughts on the Graham Audio Chartwell LS6 Monitor Loudspeaker. I always fine John's commentary to be excellent reading, a blend of audio experience, music, deep insight, and... Read More »

If you're a serious audiophile, one of the things you can be certain of is that you're eventually going to have a problem. If you're lucky, it might just be that something in your system breaks or, like tubes and some other kinds of electrical or mechanical parts, eventually wears out. If you're less lucky,... Read More »

No, not quite done yet. RSX Technologies MAX Power Cable and the RSX Technologies Power8 Multi-Outlet Power Box The RSX Technologies MAX Power Cable. All images courtesy of RSX Technologies.  Disclaimer first:  Roger Skoff, formerly of XLO Cables, has been writing essays for Positive Feedback for a few years now. Back in 2019 he started... Read More »

I am indebted to David P. Goldman‘s wonderful Tablet magazine article on the place of classical music in Israeli society for introducing me to the young pianist Noam Sivan, who is recovering the lost art of classical-piano improvisation. Born in 1978, Sivan has taught at the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School. Currently he is Professor of Piano Improvisation at the... Read More »

Okay so I have always been about removing or filtering out "noise" or whatever crap is in the signal or wherever… stuff that can cloud or obscure the music. Been after this ever since I realized it was there. Crap that gets in the way of the music. AC conditioners, AC regenerators, signal filters, grounding... Read More »

Yon Editor, contemplating... Photograph by John Robinson; image processing by David W. Robinson. Here's the fourth installment of my Brutus Awards for 2020. Time flows...I goes. Onwards.... The Mytek Brooklyn Bridge Streamer/DAC & the Mytek Brooklyn Amp+ Straight to this particular chase. I have been listening to designs from Mytek Digital for many years now…all... Read More »

Roger Skoff writes about what might be the future of our hobby So what do you do when there's nothing to do? That's what a whole lot of us have had to figure out over most of the last year. Without restaurants, the movies, sports, concerts or other live music, without parties, the gym, or... Read More »

Most tube electronics enthusiasts are content to live with the stock tubes chosen by the manufacturer. And yet for others, comparing various types and grades of vacuum tubes into audio equipment poses an endless point of fascination, as they impart different qualities on signal passing through them, thus affecting the listening experience; some are more... Read More »

A portrait of Greg Weaver, Chicago, 2018. Photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson. Greg Weaver is a very good audiobud of mine. I first became aware of him back in the 90s, when I received a copy of his the audio analyst newsletter. His prose and commentary on LPs were top-notch. I got... Read More »

Ye Olde Editor contemplating in the fall of 2019. Photograph by John Robinson; image processing by David W. Robinson Time for Part the Third of my Brutus Awards for 2020... Merrill Audio Christine Reference Preamp Image courtesy of Merrill Audio Anyone who follows my "Impressions" series over the many years now knows that I have... Read More »

  Is He Rip, a Penny, or Moby Dick? Like the proverbial "bad penny," I keep turning up. I think our PF world could suffer another grizzled audio old-timer, so I've decided to make an inauspicious return to the fold. My reasons are many—some high-minded and altruistic, some low-minded and selfish. You needn't know which... Read More »

Ye Olde Etc. enjoying the moment in the Pacific NW (portrait by John Robinson) Time for Part the Second of my Brutus Awards. iFi Audio Pro iDSD DAC/Headphone Amp/Streamer The iFi Audio Pro iDSD DAC/Headphone Amp/Preamp/Streamer (photograph and image processing by David W. Robinson) Earlier this year, iFi Audio sent along their new pro-grade many-in-one... Read More »