PS Audio founder and CEO, Paul McGowan, writes a daily blog: short, informative, fun, often controversial, but always interesting. Subjects range from personal stories, how to setup your system, news of the day, streaming, vinyl, tubes, transistors, loudspeakers, holographic imaging and more. Kind of like the Car Talk of audio. Not much is sacred, and there’s rarely a mention of our own products.

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Paul's Posts

The argument

Paul McGowan

Spend any time around this hobby and you'll notice something: audiophiles love to argue. Tubes vs. solid-state. Vinyl vs. digital. Measurements vs. listening. Power cords, break-in, speaker placement, toe-in, toe-out—you...

In the beginning

Paul McGowan

Ask a group of audiophiles if power cables make a difference, and you’ll either get an enthusiastic yes, a skeptical shrug, or a heated argument. But around here, there’s no...

Just one

Paul McGowan

We spend our audiophile lives chasing perfect stereo. Two speakers. A soundstage. Depth, width, placement, air. When it’s right, it’s magic—the illusion of a real performance in front of you....

Hard to ignore

Paul McGowan

We spend so much time picking the right speakers, the right amp, the perfect DAC or turntable. And then we drop it all into a room that doesn’t care what...

First steps

Paul McGowan

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...

Life in a vacuum

Paul McGowan

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...