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Changing of the guard
There's been a bit of kerfuffle lately about a video I made where I detailed my experience in changing vacuum tubes. I do it often. As often as every 6...
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Stuck together
I don't often recommend films to our community because we all have such different tastes. Terri and I, for example, won't watch tragic or heavy films. We stick more to...
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Doubling down
It is often difficult for people to grasp how balanced audio cables are 6dB louder than single-ended cables or how two channels of a stereo power amplifier can have double...
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Magnetic symmetry
There was a time before digital audio came onto the field where we had magnetic symmetry. Our sources—both vinyl and tape—were magnetically coupled, while our playback too was driven by...
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Defending the truth
Did you know there's a river in South America named after the world's largest online retailer? Truth or alternative fact? Today is my 74th birthday and my request from our...
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Bascom King
It is with a heavy heart and great sadness I have to report the passing of one of the great pioneers and innovators in audio. Bascom King. Bascom passed away...
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Handcrafted
We can excuse some minor irregularities in a piece of homemade furniture by accepting the idea the work was handcrafted—unique and acceptable in its lack of perfection. On the other...
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The power of monitors
Not until we got deeply immersed in the building of a state-of-the-art recording label, Octave Records did it occur to us just how important the recording/mixing monitors are to the...
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Swimming upstream
There are a number of old sayings about the futility of swimming upstream or battling rising tides. It's better to work with something than fight against it. Like one's room....
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Who's to say?
I remember the first time a worried audiophile came to me for help. It was many years ago at a consumer tradeshow. The fellow—let's just call him Ed—was concerned because...
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False cues
REL Speakers make some of the best subwoofers in the world. Owner and chief bass'ifier, John Hunter, is nothing short of a magician when it comes to setting up a...
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Error correction
I recently blogged about how building a better woofer in the first place resulted in a much better sound than adding a servo to correct the mistakes of a lesser...
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Making sense
When somebody poses an idea that doesn't make sense, my first reaction is to reject it as wrong. Over the years, I have been working hard to ignore that first...
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Strange artifacts
Bit Perfect engineer and friend, Tim Murison, sent me an interesting note about a strange artifact added to about 1/4 of all the music we stream. In a blog post...
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Distortion vs. spice
When we add to an avocado a pinch of salt, a sprinkle of paprika, and a spot of lemon, we're distorting it. It is no longer that pure, green, fresh-cut...
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PCB vs. point to point
Long ago, when tubes ruled and Bell Labs dreamt of sending electrons through solid materials instead of a vacuum, few consumer audio products had circuit boards. Though today PCBs (printed...
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Living for the city
As long as we're getting nostalgic, I am remembering the first truly audiophile disc I became enamored with. Stevie Wonder's Living for the City from his album, Innervisions. What a...
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Reel to reel
I was just remembering back to when I got started in all of this HiFi stuff. Reel to reel tape was the big deal. Not even high-end cassettes had been...
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Pedigree
I think we can all agree that a product's pedigree is no guarantee of anything. At the end of the proverbial day, it's all about performance. But a pedigree or...
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Utopia
Utopia is an imagined place or state of things in which everything and everyone in it is perfect. It's the state of perfection we often strive to achieve but occasionally...
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