It's really been snowing here, with the snow piling up, and making for nasty road conditions. The temperatures have been hovering in the single digits, but now are moving up into the balmy teens! I just put out a bunch of wild bird seed for my feathered friends, to help them out during this inhospitable cold snap,... Read More »

It's bright and early on Saturday morning and I'm up drinking espresso, as my custom is lately, starting my mornings with two café allongés to get the morning rolling. It works! My primary music system has achieved such a nice overall balance musically & sonically of late that I'm just sitting back, settling in, and enjoying the fruits of... Read More »

I've got today off from work so I'm playing hi-fi games with my Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre project loudspeakers, and I have a ton of fun things to tell you about! Facebook also informed me that today is my one-year anniversary of starting my Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre project, and guess what,... Read More »

I got up this morning and drank an adequate amount of coffee to wash down a slice of Thanksgiving's leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast, while listening to Jazz24 on the Stokowski A7 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers. Yazaki-san’s superb SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier is a perfect match to my Stokowski A7's, giving a musical... Read More »

The last week or two I had begun to miss my usual Tannoy Westminster Royale SE loudspeakers with their Duelund CAST crossovers, so I pulled my vintage Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre project loudspeakers out of the system, and put the big West's back in. Please don't take that as condemnation of the vintage... Read More »

Like usual, I've been up since 4 a.m. this Saturday morning writing like a crazed man so I can get the Duelund Coherent Audio DCA16GA premium tinned-copper cable article finished up for the November-December issue of Positive Feedback. I'm done with the article and it will appear on November 1st. I think (I hope) you'll find my... Read More »

I love surprises, and particularly surprises like the ones sent to me by Frederick Carøe at Duelund Coherent Audio in Denmark! When I first opened the box from Frederik, what did I see? I was looking through squinty, blurry eyes, and I was like, "Wow! Frederik sent me a whole box of Cuban cigars! How cool is... Read More »

I really appreciate Yazaki-san introducing me to the 'real sound' of the vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire as speaker cables, and the Belden 8402 microphone cable as interconnects, as they completely changed the way I think about audio cabling. What do they have in common? Tinned-copper conductors! Their unfailing musicality, realistic timbral textures, vivid tone... Read More »

It's always fun to get together with good friends, and I was delighted to have pals Leo, Pete, Ron, and Santos visit me for a frivolous Sunday afternoon of laughter, music, and hi-fi tomfoolery at Jeff's Place! Besides a nice selection of food & wine to nip & sip on, the menu included: 1) Finalizing the crossover... Read More »

I'm excited by what I'm hearing from my Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers. I've made a few modifications to the crossovers I'm building, and to the wiring from the crossovers to the drivers, that really are working great together. I still have a few experiments I want to try with the crossovers, but I feel like I'm... Read More »

It's always good to get home and fire up the stereo after being off on a long week of work travel. The first thing I did after getting home from a long day of flying was to plug in my vintage McIntosh vacuum tube electronics and vintage Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers based system to... Read More »

It's been really busy lately for yours truly, but tonight I'm relaxing for a little bit, and listening to a little jazz over my vintage Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers project, which at the moment is playing my Analogue Productions test pressing of Chet Baker's Chet. I probably shouldn't say this, as it drives prices up,... Read More »

The Duelund Coherent Audio DCA16GA has arrived at Jeff's Place! If you've been following this developing story, you know how excited I am about the Duelund Coherent Audio DCA16GA wire from Frederik Carøe in Denmark. "Why?" you ask. I'm glad you asked, so let me give you a brief recap of events up until now to help explain why I am... Read More »

I've been traveling in England the last couple weeks and got home last night at 1 a.m., and am now trying to get caught back up on everything, including some sleep and some music listening. I was on a tour with Rick Steves' Europe that was a lot of fun. Rick is a cultural treasure... Read More »

I had intended to spend quite a lot more time listening to the gorgeous sounding vintage Sprague Bumblebee 0.22uF capacitors in the C93 & C95 and C94 & C96 positions of my MX110Z to establish a 'baseline' before trying any more capacitors. The Bumblebee's are my favorites of all the capacitors I've tried in those positions for the MX110Z... Read More »

I have really been having a lot of fun listening to various capacitors in my vintage McIntosh MX110Z tuner-preamplifier. At the moment the vintage Sprague Bumblebees are at the top of my list for capacitors in the C93 & C95 and C94 & C96 positions for my MX110Z for their sheer musical prowess. The half a century old Bumblebees have... Read More »

After getting up this fine Saturday morning, while drinking a couple cups of my favorite coffee from Stumptown Coffee Roasters, I set about pulling off the bottom of my vintage vacuum tube McIntosh MX110Z tuner-preamplifier so I could do a little surgery on it. I had two things I wanted to do while under the bonnet, the... Read More »

I had a nice day of music listening yesterday afternoon with Leo, Pete, and Ron, as we did some listening comparisons with the Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers and their Hiraga-san inspired crossovers. The Jean Hiraga designed crossovers are about as perfect a match to the Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers as one could hope for,... Read More »

A lot of you (and me) have been lamenting that the superb Western Electric WE16GA wire has become essentially extinct, and I am down to the last little bit of WE16GA I have left, which is what I am using to wire my new crossovers for my Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers project.... Read More »

As I have gotten older I've found myself becoming more interested in history in general, and our audio history in particular. Over the last ten or fifteen years I've become increasingly fascinated with the vintage Altec Lansing Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers that started their storied journey into theaters back in 1945, as World War II was winding to... Read More »

I've been thinking a lot about tone lately, and in particular, vintage tone. If you look up 'tone' in the dictionary you'll see half a dozen definitions for it, but what I'm referring to when I say 'tone' is more in line with what musician's mean when they say 'tone', and what I think music lovers & audio hobbyists mostly... Read More »

I am delighted to say that the vintage Altec-Lansing A5 Voice of the Theatre Project is now moving forward again! In the first phase of the project I commissioned Gary Fischer to restore a vintage pair of Altec-Lansing A5 Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers, which I described in three parts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.... Read More »

While doing the vintage McIntosh MX110 tuner-preamplifier adventure we experimented with several brands of new & NOS metal film resistors in the circuit in various places, but basically I always ended up preferring the vintage 2-watt NOS Allen Bradley carbon comp resistors that Andy Moore had suggested I try. The vintage 2-watt NOS Allen Bradley resistors had better tone,... Read More »