Paul's Posts

Audiophile terminology helps the initiated communicate what they're hearing: a means of describing with words sounds that we hear. One of my favorites is transparency—see through sound. I love this... Read more...

Road maps

Finding your way is easy once you've been somewhere. When it's an unknown, a map is essential. Problem is most newcomers to high-performance 2-channel audio don't even know there's a... Read more...

On the cutting edge

It's tough being on the cutting edge of new product design. One slip and that edge might just slice you right open. Yet it's pretty boring just nosing along the... Read more...

When to upgrade

When is it time to upgrade? Add another component like a Power Plant, a new cable, a better DAC? I get asked this question a lot. Just recently the question... Read more...

Relative better

Last night our Octave Records recording crew went live at a beautiful church venue here in Boulder. There we set up the Sonoma 8-track recorder, a Decca Tree microphone arrangement... Read more...

Tweeter power

One of the ever-interesting subjects a lot of us get confused with is tweeter power. If your amplifier outputs 1,000 watts and most tweeters can only handle maybe 50 watts... Read more...

Intermodulation

When we think about distortion products we are generally referring to the harmonic kind. Harmonics are naturally occurring byproducts of sound: a plucked string will generate the intended frequency (called... Read more...

The RCA connector

I cannot imagine any reader of this blog that hasn't heard of the RCA connector. Designed in the 1940s by the Radio Corporation of America, its first use was to... Read more...

Simply So

Simple, cleaner, less cluttered. That’s the way we like our signal path, right? Less is more. In simpler days when vinyl was all there was, a clean and straight path... Read more...

The Importance Of Setup

Setting up a system takes a lot of work but it’s free. Outfitting a great system is easy, but it costs a lot of money. Which has the most value?... Read more...

The Beethoven problem

We all love our vinyl but let us not forget its many flaws. In particular, inner groove distortion. When vinyl spins the stylus follows in a spiral pattern. That spiral... Read more...

Sweeping Statements

Here’s a subject I am perhaps more guilty of than most. The practice of making a sweeping statement about how everything is one way or the other. This is wrong and this is right. This matters... Read more...

The New SACD Transport

It’s here! Well, at least the pictures and description on the webpage are. You can click here to read about the new PerfectWave SACD Transport. If you’re interested in initial impressions of... Read more...

Global Feedback

When we speak of global feedback we’re referring to the practice of wrapping the output signal of a device back to its input for comparison and correction. Because the input... Read more...

Keeping Perspective

A few days ago, in California’s appropriately named Furnace Creek, the Earth’s highest officially recorded temperature was reached—a blistering 130˚ Fahrenheit. A record temperature, to be sure, but Death Valley’s... Read more...

Liner Notes

As we move forward with a limited edition vinyl release of Octave Record’s first recording, Don Grusin’s Out of Thin Air, I got to thinking about liner notes. A rush of... Read more...

Surround Ambience

My friend, Sandy, is having good success adding a layer of ambience with a rear-positioned second set of speakers fed from an old Audio Research SDP1. You can read the... Read more...

Stuck with stereo

Are we stuck with stereo? Wouldn't multi-channel sound be a step up when it comes to immersing ourselves in music? There are certainly advantages to 4-channel or 5-channel music recordings... Read more...

We're the same

It's well known that our products are designed both by measurement and by ear. How close is the designer's hearing to that of the end user? For if the two... Read more...

More power equalled worse sound

One of my readers, Daniel, was surprised to find that a smaller powered amplifier sounded better than a bigger, more powerful version. He wondered how that could be given how... Read more...

Country/Region

Country/Region