Paul's Posts

The idea that audio components need hours of use before settling into their best sound is one of the most debated topics in our community — and the skeptics are... Read more...

Taming the beast

Getting low frequencies right in a listening room is one of the more challenging parts of building a great system — and one of the most overlooked. Bass behaves differently... Read more...

Becoming a Better Listener

Listening is a skill — and like any skill, it develops with practice, but only if you know what to practice. Most of us in the HiFi Family didn't arrive... Read more...

Same, but different

The idea that a lossless compressed file and an uncompressed file should sound identical is perfectly logical — and sometimes, in practice, it might not hold. FLAC and WAV are... Read more...

The Distortion We Love

Some of the best-sounding audio systems in the world are measurably imperfect — and understanding why might tell you something important about how sound actually works. Here's the basic physics.... Read more...

Center cabinet

That gear rack sitting between your loudspeakers is doing more damage to your soundstage than almost anyone realizes. It is one of the most common setups in audio. Two speakers... Read more...

Naming names

Readers occasionally ask why I will happily name a brand I admire, like Audioquest or Magico or Wilson, but rarely name a brand I think falls short. The answer is... Read more...

Big is better

More watts does not mean louder music, but it almost always means better music. This confuses people, and I understand why. If you have a twenty-watt amplifier and a two-hundred-watt... Read more...

Tweaking

Most high-end loudspeakers come with two sets of binding posts connected by a metal jumper or a short wire link. As most of us know, the idea is that you... Read more...

The keys to the kingdom

Last night I scrolled through the playlists I had generated, clicked on Evening Jazz with a mellow twist (with a side note for Ella to always surprise me), and within... Read more...

Dick Tracy

The other day I was at the market picking up lunch when my watch buzzed with an incoming call. I tapped the screen and had a quick conversation while wandering... Read more...

How sensitive are you?

Speaker sensitivity may be the single most misunderstood specification in all of audio. You see it on the spec sheet as a number like 87 dB or 91 dB, measured... Read more...

Getting it right

Every room has acoustic problems, and whether to fix them electronically or leave the signal untouched is one of the most contested debates in audiophile circles. Most of you know... Read more...

One box wonders

The dream of one box that does everything well is seductive, and it is closer to reality than most people think. We audiophiles tend to separate their components. A dedicated... Read more...

Shared spaces

Most of us audiophiles do not have a dedicated listening room, and that is perfectly fine. The fantasy is a purpose-built space with no windows, optimized dimensions, strategic acoustic treatment,... Read more...

Hum

A little mechanical hum from a power transformer is normal. A lot of it is a warning sign. I get emails every week from people unhappy about the buzzing sound... Read more...

CES

Industry trade shows used to be the heartbeat of the audio industry, and their decline tells us something important about how this hobby has changed. For decades, the Consumer Electronics... Read more...

Active or passive?

The question of whether to let the speaker handle its own amplification or to choose your own amplifier is one of the oldest debates in audio. Active speakers have their... Read more...

Snap!

Nothing exposes the limits of a home audio system faster than a well-recorded drum kit. Stand next to a drummer playing a full kit and you feel it in your... Read more...

Plugs

The outlet on your wall is the first link in your audio chain, and most of us ignore it completely. I get asked this question all the time. Should my... Read more...

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