Paul's Posts

The voice coil is a tiny copper or aluminum cylinder buried inside your speaker, and almost every aspect of how a driver sounds traces back to choices made about it.... Read more...

Tired?

A great system invites you to listen all night. A not-so-great one fatigues and wears you out. You struggle to stay engaged. Listening fatigue has identifiable causes, and once you... Read more...

Warmth

"Warm" is one of those audiophile words that gets used so often it stops meaning anything—at least to those of us who have been around long enough, but it might... Read more...

Band Aids

EQ in a music system is a Band-Aid. Sometimes a Band-Aid is what you need. Most of the time, the wound is somewhere else. A lot of HiFi Family members... Read more...

Surrounded

Atmos and surround are wonderful for movies, but they aren't the same experience as listening to a proper two-channel system. The difference between the two is more fundamental than the... Read more...

Unwanted violins

Tinnitus doesn't mean the end of high-fidelity listening. It means listening differently — and most of us at some point will need to learn that. Many of us audiophiles, especially... Read more...

The worldwide HiFi Family

There's a particular kind of joy that only happens at a high-end audio show. You walk into a room full of strangers and within five minutes realize you're surrounded by... Read more...

The Trail That Never Ends

Building an audio system reminds me of climbing a mountain. You hit a plateau that feels like the summit. Then you turn a corner and realize there's more above you,... Read more...

Box wars

The chassis of an audio component isn't just a box. It's part of the circuit, and definitely part of the sonics. Electronic components are mechanical things as well as electrical... Read more...

Teeth color

Bluetooth has come a long way. Whether it's gone far enough to satisfy us serious listeners is a different question. Anyone who remembers the early days — when Bluetooth speakers... Read more...

Choosing the right knob

When the preamp and the DAC both have volume controls, only one of them should actually be doing the work. This question comes up more often than you'd think. Many... Read more...

Bad sources

High-end audio means nothing if the recording is bad. Everything our gear does, it does in service of what's on the master. We spend a lot of time in our... Read more...

Just because it's served on a silver platter...

Not every SACD lives up to the silver disc on the cover. The format gives the recording a bigger window — but only the recording itself decides what's worth looking... Read more...

The loudness wars

Inconsistent audio levels on podcasts and streamed content are maddening. And worse? Commercials that are louder than the content. Whatever marketing genius that dreamed that scam up should be ashamed.... Read more...

Insurance

If you're unable to take care of your system's power through a Power Plant AC regenerator, then plugging straight into the wall often sounds best. Then a thunderstorm rolls through... Read more...

Spin cycle

Is 45 RPM Really Better? 45 RPM gives the cutting engineer more room to work with — and a 33 LP gives the listener more music. Both are real advantages,... Read more...

The same but different

Two DACs using the same off-the-shelf chip can sound completely different and... two DACs using completely different chips can sound nearly identical. The DAC chip (or technology) is but one... Read more...

Pure bliss

There's a comforting piece of audiophile folklore that says most amplifiers run in pure Class A at low listening levels. It's rarely true. A pure Class A amplifier keeps its... Read more...

Applause please

Two amplifiers can drive the same speakers in the same room and produce wildly different soundstages. The difference isn't power. It's character. Anyone who's auditioned a few power amps in... Read more...

Look up

Like obedient audiophiles, we obsess over side walls yet almost always forget the ceiling exists. Sound doesn't share our priorities. Ceiling acoustics matter as much as the side walls and... Read more...

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