Paul's Posts

It’s easier to tweak what we have than to admit we bought the wrong thing in the first place. I’ve been there more times than I care to admit. A... Read more...

The emotional test

If a system doesn’t move you, it doesn’t matter how good it measures. I have deep respect for measurements. Frequency response, distortion spectra, signal-to-noise ratio—they matter. A lot. They guide... Read more...

What we owe the recording

Every system is either revealing the truth or hiding it. A recording captures more than notes. It contains spatial cues, harmonic textures, dynamic contrasts, and the acoustic fingerprint of the... Read more...

You know what they say....

It’s tempting to equate size with performance—that was the standard line when I was a young man. Today, bigger speakers, bigger amplifiers, bigger transformers. Sometimes that works. More cone area... Read more...

Being selfish

If I wouldn’t put it in my own system, we don’t build it. That simple idea has guided us for more than fifty years. It sounds obvious, but it’s surprisingly... Read more...

The benefits of noise

Well, at least less noise. Lowering the noise floor doesn’t just make things quieter; it makes things bigger. It sounds counterintuitive, but reducing background noise expands perceived space. Microdetail lives... Read more...

Working hard at sounding easy

The best systems make the hardest work sound easy. There’s a particular quality I listen for when evaluating a system: ease. Not softness, not warmth, not politeness—ease. When an amplifier... Read more...

Streaming vs. engagement

Convenience has never been the same thing as engagement. Streaming has given us access to nearly every piece of recorded music ever made. It’s astonishing. With a few taps, you... Read more...

HiFi Family connections

High-end audio may be about sound, but it thrives on human connection. Every year, as Axpona approaches, I feel a familiar sense of anticipation. This year it takes place April... Read more...

The luxury of listening

To sit quietly and do nothing but listen to music has increasingly become a lost art. I sometimes wonder how many people still do it. Not as background. Not while... Read more...

The destination myth

It sounds trite to say the journey matters more than the destination, yet it keeps proving itself true. I’ve spent much of my life chasing mountaintops. The idea is always... Read more...

Uncovering the obvious

The strange thing about improvement is that it often reveals what was there all along. When a system reaches a certain level, changes stop sounding like changes. Instead, they feel... Read more...

When logic gets in the way

Some of the most important lessons I’ve learned came from being wrong. And I am right about that. :) As a designer, I’ve always trusted logic. If something adds circuitry... Read more...

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... Read more...

Is bigger better?

There was a time when bigger meant better in audio. I still remember the console stereo my dad bought in the ‘50s. Walnut veneer, glowing dials of the Stromberg Carlson... Read more...

Textures

Texture in sound is the difference between hearing music and feeling it. I remember listening to a string quartet through an early prototype of the PMG DAC. What struck me... Read more...

What if?

New technologies always seem to scare us. I remember when computers first came into the workplace. There was fear in the air—real fear. People warned that we'd all be out... Read more...

The color of sound

We hear music in color, even though it comes to us in waves, not hues. From the early days of describing sound, musicians and engineers have used color as metaphor:... Read more...

There is no absolute sound

With apologies to our friends at the magazine.... The idea of a perfect sound is comforting—but it’s fiction. I’ve spent the last fifty years chasing the goal of accurate reproduction.... Read more...

We won't get fooled again

One of the most common traps we audiophiles fall into is confusing clarity with brightness. When you first swap in a new cable, DAC, or pair of speakers and hear... Read more...

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