Paul's Posts

Every system has dynamics, but it's only the rare few that handle peaks as well as they handle quiet passages. At a basic level, dynamics describe the difference between the... Read more...

Is it right?

A wide soundstage is not necessarily a precise one—but it certainly is enticing. It’s common to hear people describe a system with “huge soundstage” as if that’s the gold standard.... Read more...

Sharing

Yesterday we spoke of honing one's listening skills, something many of us take for granted (because we've been doing it for so long). Today, let's focus on communicating that which... Read more...

The art of listening

Truly discerning what a system is doing takes time, practice, and intention. The first time someone sits down in front of a high-end system, the reaction is often visceral—they are... Read more...

Better at night

Your system sounds better at night. No, you're not imagining it. And no, it's not just because of that glass of Pinot or Merlot. What you’re probably hearing is cleaner... Read more...

What's Watt?

A 50-watt amp might sound great—until the music asks for 51. Watts don’t tell you how good an amp sounds. But they do tell you what kind of speaker you... Read more...

Sensitive

Some people are sniveling and sensitive—you hand them a Kleenex and hope for the best. Speakers, on the other hand, list their sensitivity in decibels and pretend it means something.... Read more...

A likely story

When a bad guy goes under an alias, it’s usually to hide their identity. When a pop star uses one, it’s for branding. But when audio signals alias, they’re not... Read more...

Going low

We usually talk about impedance when matching sources to loads—like making sure your preamp and amp play nicely together, or that a phono cartridge is loaded correctly. But one of... Read more...

Are you coherent?

If your system doesn’t preserve phase coherence, it doesn’t matter how expensive it is—music won’t sound real. Phase coherence means all the frequencies in a signal arrive at your ears... Read more...

Ringing

There’s a kind of distortion in digital audio that happens before the music even starts. That’s not a philosophical statement—it’s pre-ringing, the unnatural "echo" that appears before a transient when... Read more...

The classic TLA

A day or so ago, I waxed on about birds and distortion specs—the kind that never seem to make it into glossy reviews, even though they matter more than half... Read more...

Damping

Damping controls how your speakers behave after the music stops. When you feed a signal to a woofer, it moves—then it needs to stop. The amplifier’s damping factor describes how... Read more...

The specs they never show you

Nobody brags about how fast they overshoot a red light—or a marriage proposal. And yet in audio, we get spec sheets full of shiny numbers like total harmonic distortion, frequency... Read more...

Going too far

You don’t want to overshoot your driveway, your calorie limit, or the winning note in a vocal audition. In audio, overshoot happens when an amplifier or circuit responds too eagerly... Read more...

Slew rate

Odd term, right? It doesn't refer to slaying dragons but it does matter a great deal to us Audiophiles. Slew rate measures how quickly an amplifier can respond to a... Read more...

Noise?

Signal-to-noise ratio tells you how much of your system is music—and how much is garbage. We've all heard the figures and specs, but sometimes a deeper look is instructive. Every... Read more...

Your system's voice

Every system has a voice—and it’s yours to shape. Whether you realize it or not, you’re voicing your system every time you make a change. Swap a cable, adjust toe-in,... Read more...

The secrets of subwoofers

Low bass is as much about finesse as it is about weight. Many listeners avoid subwoofers because they associate them with boomy, exaggerated bass or they don't want more boxes.... Read more...

A season of thanks

Community is at the heart of everything we do. As the year winds down and the holiday lights start to glow a little brighter, I find myself thinking about how... Read more...

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