It's Christmas morning here in the Americas. I've got a fire burning in the fireplace, a hot cup of good coffee in my hand, and I've got Northwest Public Radio playing a lot of really great Christmas themed material today through my vintage McIntosh MX110Z's vacuum tube tuner. Heaven. At the moment NPR is playing... Read More »

I was browsing through a recent Orvis catalog and I ran across these 78 RPM record coasters. The Orvis website says "During the 1950s, 78 rpm records dominated the sonic landscape. Re-live the golden age of the 78s with these repurposed vinyl record coasters. Cut from vintage 78s, laminated, and backed with felt, these are... Read More »

For the complete 10th Annual Positive Feedback Writers' Choice Awards for 2013 click here. As an excerpt, here's my Awards for 2013: It is time once again for the Annual Positive Feedback Online's Writers' Choice Awards, which means that it is time once again for yours truly to sift through my past year of reviews... Read More »

The Duelund-Westminster Special Edition (SE) external crossover project was a rousing success, and you can read about its step-by-step progression by following the links in the Review Archives here ... ... or you can cut to the chase and read the final feature article I wrote about it for Positive Feedback Online here. For those of... Read More »

As I mentioned in the Today's Fresh Catch post about the Duelund CAST Silver Capacitors (here), Frederik made up a pair of 6.8 uF Duelund CAST Silver capacitors (below) for me to give a listen to in the C1 position of the Duelund-Westminster Royal SE high-frequency crossover. As you can see in the photo of the... Read More »

As I mentioned in my Sneak Peek a little while back, Frederik Carøe, the founder of Duelund Coherent Audio, was building up a set of his exotic Duelund Coherent Audio CAST Silver Capacitors for me to try in the Duelund-Westminster Royal SE High-Frequency Crossover! Well, today they arrived - talk about an exciting development! I was... Read More »

A little while back Frederik Carøe - the founder of Duelund Coherent Audio - asked me if I would like to try a set of his exotic Duelund Coherent Audio CAST Silver Capacitors in the Duelund-Westminster Royal SE High-Frequency Crossover, and of course I said yes! Frederik asked me which of the capacitor positions in the... Read More »

As I've promised in earlier posts, I’m archiving the Duelund-Westminster External Crossover article here at Jeff’s Place so you can find everything in one place for reference purposes (Part 1 - Intro, Part 2 - Breadboarding, Part 3 - Final Design). The full version of the article was just published in Issue 70 of Positive... Read More »

I'm currently working hard on writing the review of the Mhdt Labs Stockholm V2 vacuum tube USB DAC (below). For a digital front end I am using my iMac with the new Mavericks OS and iTunes, which I've loaded around 900 to 1000 CDs at full resolution onto. I really wanted to make sure I... Read More »

On Sunday afternoon Ron (center) and Leo (left) joined me for a fine day of hi-fi fun and games, and as usual we had a ball! (Sorry for the blurry photo. Note to self: remember to use the correct camera setting next time!) After a lunch of a combo pizza and a few glasses of... Read More »

As I promised in earlier posts , I'm archiving the Duelund-Westminster External Crossover article here at Jeff's Place for reference purposes (Part 1, Part 2). The full version of the article was just published in Issue 70 of Positive Feedback Online here so be sure to check it out if you haven't already. Here is the next installment... Read More »

The Soundcoat Company has been providing specialized noise control solutions for aerospace, medical, and industrial applications since 1963. I first became aware of The Soundcoat Company through Steven Klein at Sounds of Silence (who imports the New Valve Order Audio electronics to North America), when he told me about the superb results he experienced through applying .070 GPDS vibration damping material... Read More »

It's always a lot of fun to gather together with friends for a little Hi-Fi listening, and Leo, Ron, and myself had a blast visiting George's Place for a little Hi-Fi fun and games. That's George's system below, with Leo, George, and Ron, left to right. Here's a description of George's system starting with the... Read More »

The Duelund-Westminster Project is live on Positive Feedback Online in Issue 70! As I mentioned in an earlier post, the article is huge with over 40 pages of text and 137 photographs. Editor Dave decided to break it up into two parts to make it a little more manageable to read on the website, and... Read More »

The full Duelund-Westminster External Crossover Project article has been submitted to the Ye Olde Editors Dave and David of Positive Feedback Online for publication in the November 2013 issue next week. The article is 41 pages long and includes 137 photographs - it is a doozy! As I mentioned in my Part 1 sneak peak,... Read More »

Today's Fresh Catch is a vintage Johnny Smith Phase II LP on the Verve label that my buddy Leo picked up for me while cruising the record stores - thank you Leo! Wait until you hear it on the Westminsters, Leo, it'll blow your mind - it is an awesome album! I'm sitting here listening... Read More »

The Acoustic Sounds website says this recording of Antonio Vivaldi's Le Quattro Stagioni with Giuliano Carmignola on violin is one of the 10 best recordings of the last century, and after listening to it tonight I don't doubt it. Here's a formula for success: pick one of the 10 greatest recordings of the past century,... Read More »

This has been quite an eventful week (and weekend!). Yesterday the the restored vintage mint+ McIntosh MX110Z tuner-preamplifier that I purchased from vintage vacuum-tube specialists Tom Manley & Terry DeWick in Knoxville, Tennessee, arrived. The MX110Z was in pristine condition (mint+ actually) and needed hardly any restoration, with only a few internal components needing to be... Read More »

I'm working hard writing the Duelund-Westminster External Crossover Project article for Positive Feedback Online right now. I can't even begin to guess how many hours I've got into this project between doing the project and writing about it - a lot - and I've enjoyed every minute of it! I thought it would be fun... Read More »

Today's Fresh Catch is the restored vintage mint+ McIntosh MX110Z tuner-preamplifier that I purchased from vintage vacuum-tube specialist Tom Manley at McIntosh Audio, and was restored by Terry DeWick in Knoxville, Tennessee. The MX110Z is a beauty for sure! Here's a left side view: Here's the other side ... Here's a top-front view ... I haven't... Read More »

As I've posted a couple of times recently (1, 2, 3), that while I was writing the Acoustic Revive Chronicles Chapter 10 article for Positive Feedback Online, I was very pleasantly surprised by what a tremendous performance enhancement - both musically & sonically - the Acoustic Revive modified Oyaide R-1 AC receptacles (below) were in my... Read More »

FedEx delivered the set of my 'new' restored vintage McIntosh MC30s mono amplifiers today that I purchased from Yves Beauvais at Vintage Vacuum Audio after hearing my friend Leo's MC30s that impressed me so much.  I unpacked the Mac's and set them up in the system with my Westminster Royal Duelund Special Edition loudspeakers, and put... Read More »

I started my listening this evening with the 45 RPM version of the Shelly Manne & Bill Evans album Empathy from Analogue Productions and I've just been blown away. Certainly a lot of the credit goes to this wonderful album, Empathy, which I've reported on before, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention... Read More »