Many thanks to Richard Wugang of Sophia Electric for taking time to write about the history of the 45 vacuum tube for us here at Jeff's Place in this Part 1 post. There will be more to come from Richard specifically about the design of his Sophia Electric 45 mesh plate tubes in Part 2. As... Read More »

I've got a lot of really interesting hifi things to tell you about, but it may take me a little longer than usual to fill you in on all the details, as the last few weeks have been difficult on the home front, and it is likely to be that way for a while longer. ... Read More »

In my introductory post on the topic of high-fidelity audio, I told you about the discussions that Peter Qvortrup (Audio Note (UK)) and I have been having about the state of contemporary audio – an audio state of the union, so to speak – and it turns out we have a rather significant Venn overlap... Read More »

I've had the good fortune to listen to audio components of late that have become my new performance benchmarks in ways I couldn't have imagined even a few short years ago. For music lovers, the good news is that these components have an extraordinary ability to play the wide swath of recordings that spans our... Read More »

Many thanks to Sue and Richard at Sophia Electric for sending Today's Fresh Catch, a pair of the Sophia Electric 45 Mesh Plate power tubes, and a Sophia Electric Aqua 274B rectifier.  The beautiful 2 watt Triode Lab 45 EVO SET integrated amplifier will be the fortunate recipient of these vacuum tubes from Sophia Electric, and I... Read More »

Happy Holiday Season to you all! I hope you are well, safe, and are enjoying listening to music with your hifi rigs!  Next up for review at Positive Feedback is the Pass Labs XP-17 phono preamplifier, designed by Pass Labs' Wayne Colburn. I'll be writing about the XP-17 in combination with the First Watt SIT-3 amplifier (review... Read More »

Today's Fresh Catch are the Audio Note (UK) AN-SPe silver loudspeaker cables, and a set of CDs of performances by Russian conductor Nikolay Golovanov that were sourced from 1940s tapes that were remastered by Anatoly Markovich Likhnitsky.  While I have found all of the Audio Note (UK) components I have tried to be excellent matches... Read More »

Welcome to a new series of informal essays that are meditations about what high-fidelity is, or perhaps could be, in enthusiast audio. There are a lot of dimensions to exploring high-fidelity in enthusiast audio, but the first question one might ask is, “What does high-fidelity mean in enthusiast audio?” One possible definition of many is... Read More »

I've had the Audio Note (UK) AN-S4/L step-up transformer here for about six weeks now, and have been listening to it in combination with my Ortofon SPU Classic phono cartridge. The "L" version of the AN-S4 SUT has a 3 Ohm input impedance, and is primarily designed for use with the Audio Note (UK) IO... Read More »