To borrow from Dina Washington's album, What a Diff'rence a Day Makes!, the title certainly describes the results of the listening session that Ron, Leo, and I had on Sunday afternoon with the Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers that were so lovingly restored by Gary Fischer. When Ron and I first listened to... Read More »

The SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier was one of my three choices for a Positive Feedback Writers' Choice Award for 2015, and for good reason, it is an amazingly good amplifier. Here's what I said in my Positive Feedback Writers' Choice Award writeup: "The beautifully built, artisanal work of passion, SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier... Read More »

It's Christmas morning here in Washington State, and I'm sitting here with a hot steaming cup of coffee, and I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Like any kid looking forward to the arrival of Christmas morning and opening the presents under the Christmas tree, I have been looking forward to the arrival of a pair... Read More »

I ran across a great tip for connecting unterminated wires like the Western Electric WE16GA to screw terminals like the vintage McIntosh amplifiers use. If you look at the photo above you can see that the WE16GA inserted into the screw terminals doesn't make good contact, and I've found if you do it that way... Read More »

My favorite album for 2015 is Paul McCartney's Unplugged (The Official Bootleg). I've long had the CD of McCartney's Unplugged, and it is easily my favorite McCartney album, with the music & performance being superb. Just so you know, the album came out in 1991, so my CD excepting, I'm a bit late to the party. This year I decided... Read More »

As you know if you've been reading along, I've been flabbergasted with how incredibly musical the vintage McIntosh MX110 tuner-preamplifier is, and if you haven't yet read my The Vintage McIntosh Experience article I wrote for Positive Feedback in Issue 77 discussing it, I encourage you to go and give it a read. Quite a number of posts... Read More »

After my post Listening to the Maestro’s VOTTs this morning … and other stuff! Gary (Gary Fischer Loudspeakers) sent me a couple of nice photos of the completed Altec Lansing A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers. After the A5's arrive here at Jeff's Place, I'll do some closeups so you can get a nice view... Read More »

Over the last couple of days my audio buddies Stephaen, Harry, Kara, Pete, George, and I were talking about J. Gordon Holt's article (Stereophile) Too Good to Be True, published back in January of 1963, where Gordon asked the relevant (and somewhat disturbing question), "Does today's high-fidelity equipment, for all its vastly improved performance, actually sound that... Read More »

It is another early morning of sipping coffee while listening to the custom vintage Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers that were built for Leopold Stokowski back when he lived in New York, before he moved back to London permanently. There's just something magically musical about the combination of the SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier and the Maestro's VOTTs. This... Read More »

The Woody SPU Tonearm by Pete Riggle Audio Engineering absolutely blows away my excellent Thomas Schick tonearm, much to my dismay! I've been listening for an extended period now, back and forth, on my Garrard Project 2015 player system, to my reference Thomas Schick tonearm and the Woody SPU tonearm, and it is no contest. The Woody... Read More »

The 12th Annual Positive Feedback Writers’ Choice Awards for 2015 are out and can be viewed here. My individual contribution is below. Enjoy! Positive Feedback Writers’ Choice Awards for 2015 By Jeff Day It’s always an exciting time of year when the Positive Feedback Writer’s Choice Awards roll around, as it provides a time to... Read More »

I'm up early this morning drinking some excellent Kenya Kangunu coffee from Stumptown, and listening to the Maestro's VOTTs system I've put together, which is so musically beguiling it's hard to convey how satisfying it is to listen to music with, and in a small room at that! Yazaki-san's SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier is a... Read More »

This is the Thanksgiving Holiday week in the USA, where we commemorate a romanticized version of a 1621 harvest festival feast in which refugee Pilgrims honored a Native American man of the Patuxet tribe, named Squanto, who had taught them how to fish & plant corn, and had negotiated a peace treaty for them with the Wampanoag Nation, ensuring their survival, in their first year... Read More »

I'm not entirely happy with the way the Western Electric WE16GA power cords for my vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers came out. Similar to when I tried the WE16GA in a pair of RCA interconnects, the WE16GA just sounded a little too forward & direct for my Tannoy Westminster Royal SE loudspeakers. The Western Electric WE16GA sounds fantastic as speaker... Read More »

As I reported yesterday, my first attempt at a USB interconnect didn't go so well: "I also tried building a USB interconnect out of vintage guitar pushback wire (all the rage for re-wiring electric guitars for that beautiful ‘vintage tone’ experience), which is tinned-copper with a cotton cover, which reminds me a lot of the... Read More »

My Maestro's VOTTs & SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier room has become my go-to coffee nook in the morning. I've developed a week-day ritual of rolling out about 4:30 a.m. and firing up the SPEC RSA-M3 EX, the Mhdt Paradisea+ USB DAC, and my old MacBook that I'm using as a source. Then I wander into the kitchen to... Read More »

If you read The Vintage McIntosh Experience article in Issue 77 of Positive Feedback you know I'm a big fan of the vintage McIntosh MX110Z tuner-preamplifier. The MX110Z makes vinyl & FM sound astonishingly good, it even makes digital your friend. Performance-wise it can easily hold its own against contemporary preamplifiers, and feature-wise it outclasses any modern preamplifier on... Read More »

Yesterday Ron and I embarked on an audio adventure and drove to the Emerald City of Seattle to look at (and listen to) a pair of vintage Altec Lansing Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers that were custom built for Leopold Stokowski (April 18, 1882 – September 13, 1977), while he lived in New York and was conducting the... Read More »

With all the cable rolling I've been doing lately with the Belden 8402 microphone cable interconnects, and the Western Electric WE16GA, I thought I should mention how handy Alan Kaftan's audiodharma Cable Cooker is for running in cables and getting them to sound their best. I use my Cable Cooker all the time on cables when... Read More »

A couple of posts ago I told you about my adventure of building up an AC power cord with the Western Electric WE16GA and trying it out on my Mhdt Havana USB DAC. It takes a while for the Western Electric WE16GA to settle down, but I thought my newly constructed WE16GA power cord sounded promising, and... Read More »

With its cooler temperatures and wetter weather, Autumn in the Pacific Northwest is a time when life starts to shift indoors. It means kicking off new audio projects, getting the fireplace going, getting out a good book, with the muse of music stirring thoughts of the past as well as dreams for the future. So it is also with my... Read More »

Here's another of The Jeff Awards for 2015, and these are all things that I personally use and enjoy, and I think you'll like them a lot too. It also happens that most of these are relatively affordable gift ideas that will fit into a Christmas stocking, so the 12 Days of Christmas Stocking Stuffers Award... Read More »

I am continuing to roll out The Jeff Awards for 2015. One of my biggest revelations over the last few years was how ridiculously good restored vintage vacuum tube gear could be, and I'd like to recognize the superb restoration work done by the vintage McIntosh specialist team of Tom Manley & Terry DeWick of McIntosh... Read More »