Loading...

I've just spent a little time reading posts—both the originals and the comments on them—in some of the more than fifty audiophile groups that I know of on the internet. I'm sure there must actually be many more than just half a hundred of such groups, but from what I've seen, fifty is more than... Read More »

A Portrait of Michael Mercer: THE Show, Newport Beach, CA, 2013 I have to admit, it felt great to laugh out-loud while reading Dr. D's (as I call him) farewell essay on Harry Pearson. It was also refreshing; as he stated, because Dr. D never worked for Harry. He was able to take a more... Read More »

I admit it; I can be late to the party. The vast majority of gear I have written about is not new to serious audio buffs and some has had much previous press. There are two broad causes for this: One: I am not "initials" famous. You can't utter "gb" and watch as everyone turns... Read More »

Harry Pearson, a characteristic pose. RMAF 2009, Denver, CO With the death of Harry Pearson, Michael Mercer and I talked and decided that we would put our thoughts about his passing together in a pair of brief reflections, and publish them together. Others have already done so, and will probably continue to do so, at... Read More »

Harry Pearson was an extraordinary man. He was always curious, and could turn an acidic, negative situation into fine wine and smiles with a quick-witted retort to a verbal challenge anytime. (Well, except after imbibing too many chocolate martinis). He loved knowledge, and was always reading something in the morning hours following his daily sunrise-walk.... Read More »

The Rolling Stones, Sam Cooke & The Animals in DSD Just over a year ago, Chad Kassem at Acoustic Sounds announced the launch of Super HiRez, a new downloads site that would bring out major artist albums in Direct Stream Digital (DSD) in response to many requests from music fans and audiophiles. Since that time,... Read More »

Only my oldest, dearest friends call me "Clarkie", so be careful – but it does make for a better title, so, yeah. / The author When I first met Harry it was on the lawn of the St. Tropez Hotel at a C.E.S. some years ago. But we had had a history that, in its... Read More »

DSPeaker is a Finnish company that manufactures audio products using DSP chips made by its parent company, VSLI Solution. The two most widely known DSPeaker products are their two room correction devices: the Anti-mode 8033 that is designed to tame the room nodes caused by your subwoofer and the Dual-Core which provides room correction for... Read More »

Our entire hobby is predicated on the contradiction of music reproduction, and one chord strummed live shatters the illusion of high end. But the joy I get from headphone listening, the main system, my car audio (even my Sports Walkman cassette player!) is very real and, often, equal in intensity. I say, leave the audio... Read More »

The Theory One day when looking closely at a copy of the Beatles' first mono single, "Love Me Do" (a replica, sadly), I had an epiphany. You see, my vision is in the extreme nearsighted range, which is mostly a curse but also a blessing because my eyes are like microscopes. The average human eye... Read More »

Hi I would like to introduce myself to you. My name is Frankie Rat and I have an audio story for you. I hope you find it interesting so here goes. It's not easy living in the rat race. I get up real early in the morning, hop in my little rat rod slide down... Read More »

"The muses dance and sing| They make the children really ring I spend the day your way Call it morning driving thru the sound and In and out the valley" - "Roundabout" by Yes   As you may remember from an earlier article, I recently moved to San Francisco and had to scale down my... Read More »

Last year there were concerns about the lack of high resolution music files available in the Direct Stream Digital (DSD) format for purchase. It was a factor that some music fans cited as a reason for holding off on buying a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) that included DSD playback. Those of you following the... Read More »

Attack of the PODs! No they are not from Mars! They are from London: Designed, constructed, and shipped from London, England by the brilliant Max Townshend to American audiophiles like us, for the best replacement of the air filled bladder sinks of old. The PODs isolate your gear like it was suspended in outer space.... Read More »

The AURALiC VEGA DSD DAC (top) and TAURUS headphone amp (bottom) in tandem, on one of our reference Stillpoints ESS Grid Racks… lovely, lovely! Once, and not so long ago (A year? Two?), I maintained a list of DSD DACs. After the establishment of the DSD-over-PCM (DoP) open standard, and the polishing of ASIO drivers... Read More »

More than once this writer has been accused of having a single-track mind when it comes to talking audio. This view I must heartily confute: in fact he has three tracks. But the one that attracts attention foremost does concern polarity, also known as acoustic polarity, also under proper circumstances known as Absolute Polarity. On... Read More »

I had the distinct pleasure of attending a press briefing the other night to announce the release of a special limited edition box set of recordings to honor the 75th anniversary of Blue Note Records. Our hosts were Owen Kwon, VP of Product and Business for Astell & Kern, and Don Was, President of Blue Note... Read More »

George Klissarov, exaSound (left) and Jared Sacks, NativeDSD.Com (right) Listening to Multichannel DSD Music at RMAF 2013 Pushing the Boundaries of High Resolution Audio Many Positive Feedback readers and audiophiles are familiar with exaSound Audio Design based in Toronto, Canada. For those of you who are new to the world of high resolution stereo and multichannel music... Read More »

"Say it ain't so, I will not go, Turn the lights off, Carry me home" —"All the Small Things", Blink 182 So this all started with a big argument that my girlfriend and I had, the resolution of which was to move in together up in San Francisco, where she already lived. The problem was... Read More »