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First steps
Most of the time, your amp isn’t working hard. Even when you’re really into it—volume up, speakers cooking—you’re probably only using a watt or two. Maybe less. The average listening...
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Life in a vacuum
In a world of vanishing distortion and near-perfect specs, tubes shouldn’t still matter. But they do. There’s something unmistakable about a great tube design. The way it handles space, the...
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The grill
It's one of those little choices we all face when setting up a system: leave the grilles on, or take them off? When we were designing the Aspen speakers, this...
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Looks are deceiving
It’s easy to look at a modest-sized speaker and assume it can’t throw a big stage. But size alone doesn’t determine scale. The Aspen speakers are a perfect example of...
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Audio myth
I’ve been doing this long enough to know better than to dismiss what people hear. If someone tells me their new DAC sounded harsh out of the box, and that...
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Getting close
Most of us listen from across the room. We lean back, center ourselves between the speakers, and let the system open up in front of us. That’s far-field listening—where distance...
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Planars
I love planar magnetic headphones. Not as a replacement for loudspeakers—far from it—but as tools. They’ve become essential to my work in the studio, especially when I need to zoom...
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Consoles
And while we're ruminating about history… Before the stack of silver boxes. Before the separate preamp and power amp, the racks of glowing tubes, the towering planar speakers and coils...
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OTL amps
I love history. There’s a particular magic in the simplicity of a direct path—whether it’s a live microphone feed straight to the control room, or the cleanest signal from source...
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Make someone happy
If you’ve been in this hobby for any length of time, you’ve probably got a closet—or a shelf—full of older gear. Maybe it’s a classic preamp that’s seen better days....
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Small works too
There’s nothing quite like the sound of a full-range loudspeaker. A proper pair of floorstanders—like the Aspen FR30s or FR20s—can deliver scale, weight, and dimensionality that just wraps you in...
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The light switch
I’ve noticed something over the years—both in my own habits and in conversations with others. We spend a lot of time chasing upgrades, swapping cables, moving speakers half an inch...
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Good books
One of the best tweaks you can make to a room doesn’t come from an audio catalog. It might be sitting in your hallway or living room right now. I’m...
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Seriously
We’re visual creatures. I’ve often said we listen with our eyes just as much as our ears—though most of us wouldn’t admit it. Show someone a flimsy box with plastic...
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Beyond the edges
Image width is one of those things that sneaks up on you. You don’t always know it’s missing—until one day, there it is. A guitar you swear is playing from...
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Width
We’ve been on a bit of a roll lately—talking about setup, imaging, and now depth. And I think that’s a good thing. These are the fundamentals. They’re what turn a...
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Deep
In the last few days, we’ve been focusing on setup—on imaging, speaker placement, and what it takes to make a system disappear. And one of the things that’s come up...
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Phantoms
You sit between the speakers, press play, and suddenly there’s a voice floating in space—not coming from the left speaker, not from the right, but dead center, hovering in front...
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In the wrong place
Don't you love it when the speakers vanish? Not literally, of course—but sonically. You close your eyes, and there’s no box, no cabinet, no driver—just a voice hanging in the...
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Format wars
For years, we were locked into format wars. CD vs. SACD. DVD-Audio vs. Blu-ray. MP3 vs. FLAC. Physical vs. digital. I’ve lived through all of it, and yes—those formats do...
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