Spirals

Progress in audio design rarely moves in a straight line.

Early in my career, I believed that if we just took enough careful steps forward—measure, listen, refine—we’d eventually arrive at some final destination called “right.” What I’ve learned instead is that every meaningful step forward opens a new door, and behind that door is more work than we expected.

Each improvement exposes limitations we couldn’t hear before, which forces us to rethink choices we were once confident about.

Designing audio gear is a conversation between intention and discovery. You make a change because logic or experience tells you it should help, and sometimes it does exactly what you hoped. Other times, it reveals something else entirely. The soundstage opens up, but the tonal balance shifts. Dynamics improve, but spatial focus softens. Each step forward demands another step to restore balance.

That process can feel like going in circles. We revisit topologies we’ve abandoned, re-evaluate parts we dismissed, and question assumptions we once considered settled. From the outside, it can look like indecision. From the inside, it’s evolution.

You don’t hear what’s missing until you remove what was holding things back, and once you do, there’s no unhearing it.

When we were developing the PMG Signature DAC, this spiral was relentless. Each reduction in noise revealed subtler forms of distortion. Each improvement in timing made spacial cues more obvious. Fixing one problem never ended the journey—it simply raised the bar for everything else.

What sounded complete yesterday sounded constrained today.

The key realization is that this isn’t circular motion at all. It’s an upward spiral. We may revisit familiar ground, but we do so with better tools, sharper ears, and deeper understanding. The reference point keeps moving higher, even when the path overlaps itself.

For listeners, this matters because great sound doesn’t come from chasing novelty. It comes from persistence. From refusing to accept “good enough” simply because the next improvement is harder than the last.

That upward spiral is how recorded music gets closer to feeling alive, and it’s the only way I know how to do this work honestly.