I've been on a semi-pilgrimage to build a "near replica" of the 1964 Telecaster of the late Canadian jazz guitarist, Ed Bickert, who is definitely one of my favorite jazz guitarists. Many thanks to Roman Pokorny for sharing his photos with me of his visit with Ed and of Ed's Telecaster. You might notice I... Read More »

It's always exciting to hear from our friend Yazaki-san, and this time Yazaki-san really outdid himself! You all know how much I love my humble vintage Altec loudspeaker collection of the A5 Voice of the Theatre, Corona 832A, and the "Stokowski" Altec's. Well, our friend Yazaki-san sent me a special issue of Stereo Sound from 2006 that... Read More »

I've been wanting to write an article about the "musicality magic" of vintage Altec loudspeakers for a while now, so consider this a mini-installment towards that goal, with - I hope - much more to come. Let's start with a short Altec history lesson. Altec's origins are inextricably linked to the Western Electric movie theater loudspeaker systems... Read More »

My buddy Ron Barbee has impeccable taste in vintage gear, and his Pioneer Series 20 M-22 Class A power amplifier is a case in point. Introduced in 1976, the Pioneer Series 20 M-22 Class A power amplifier is a 30 watts per channel amplifier (into 8 Ohms) with an extremely rugged build quality, and according to... Read More »

First of all I want to thank you for being patient with me. As some of you know, my Mom, almost 94 years of age now, has been going through some rough times health-wise. Getting her to and from doctors, hospitals, trying to help her out generally, and spending quality time with her has been... Read More »

There's always a lot going on here at my place, and I'm hoping you're enjoying these little updates to share it all with you. ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ Still Audio ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ I'm working on writing up the Still Audio EL84 integrated amplifier review for Positive Feedback this weekend, and with a little luck I'll be able to get... Read More »

I've been agonizing about whether to do it or not, but I've decided to put my vintage McIntosh MC225 and vintage McIntosh MC240 stereo power amplifiers up for sale, as they're not seeing much use of late. I hate to leave such wonderful vintage McIntosh amplifiers sitting around when they could be making beautiful music... Read More »

My friend Ron Barbee enjoys finding vintage audio gems and restoring them, like the Fisher SA-100 stereo power amplifier that is the subject of today's post. The Fisher SA-100 came out in 1963 and sold for about $120 USD ($986.63 in 2018 USD). They are relatively rare today, but if you run across one in... Read More »

I was hoping to get the Positive Feedback review of the Soundsmith Carmen Mk II phonograph cartridge finished up this weekend, but it's looking like it is going to be next weekend instead - it's turned out to be a busy weekend! Also, something very interesting happened during the review of the Carmen Mk II - in a... Read More »

It is always such a pleasure to hear from Yazaki-san, he is such a gracious and kind gentleman, and he has more good audio ideas in a day than most of us do in a year! I have a fascinating multi-part story of serendipity and intrigue to relate to you about Today's Fresh Catch, the Spec RSP-AZ9EX Real... Read More »

Ron has a way of finding nice vintage audio treasures, and as a very talented tube tech Ron enjoys the process of freshening them up so they can be heard in all their glory. Ron brought along his latest project for the listening session with the First Watt SIT-3, the very interesting vintage Fisher SA-100... Read More »

After discussing this topic in a couple comments with capacitor guru Daryl Stahler, I wanted to follow up with a proper post to give this exciting news more visibility in case you didn't read it in the comments. To reiterate what I said in my comment: I want to let you know some more interesting... Read More »

I'm a bit jet-lagged after just getting back from England after a couple of weeks of traveling, so if I am rambling and a bit non-sensical in this post please forgive me, and hopefully I'll make more sense in a few days. 😉 Anyways, my buddy Doc Leo just bought a nice example of a... Read More »

An old high-school buddy that I reconnected with recently, Mark, asked me for a recommendation for a HiFi system for $10K or under. Mark is actually the person who introduced me to enthusiast audio way back when we were in high-school together, but he's been out of enthusiast audio for quite a long while. As... Read More »

I am delighted to be able to share with you Part 7 of Yazaki-san's adventure with his vintage Marantz Model 7K preamplifier! I always enjoy reading what Yazaki-san has written, and I always learn a lot from his many insights. I would like to say a very special "Thank you!" to Yazaki-san for taking time... Read More »

I've been looking at guitars again, or more exactly, vintage Gibson ES 150 guitars. YouTube example below. Listen to that incredible tone of "Fred Archtop's" 1938 Gibson ES 150 "Charlie Christian", it's out of this world! So what does that have to do with audio? Well, both guitars and audio intersect at music, that's what! You've heard... Read More »

I went a bit wild today and decided to rearrange all my bedroom furniture so I could set up the new-to-me vintage Altec Corona loudspeakers as my bedroom system. The speakers look small in the photo above because of the size of the room, but they're really 3.5 feet tall and 3 feet wide, so... Read More »

Today's post was inspired by Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,  one of my favorite pointillist impressionism paintings, showing Parisians relaxing in a park on the banks of the Seine (below). In a silly oddio variation on a theme, you get my music, film, literature, and audio impressions while I'm relaxing... Read More »

In the coming months, we're going to be building crossovers using the new Duelund Coherent Audio tinned-copper components for the custom Altec Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers that were built for Mr. Stokowski, nearly six decades ago now. In preparation for the upcoming project I've been doing some background "research" on Mr. Stokowski, and I have been... Read More »

In my blog post about the Audio MusiKraft tunable Denon DL-103 phonograph cartridge last weekend, I described its performance in comparison to my stock Denon DL-103 on my vintage Thorens TD-124, that was restored and hot-rodded by Christopher Thornton at Artisan Fidelity. I listened to the two Denon's with identical Audio-Technica AT-HS1 headshells and identical sets... Read More »

In my original "Garrard Project" back in 2004, I started with a nice old original 301 in a simple plinth, and built it up into a music-making machine - the results were superb! Those vintage Garrard 301's (and 401's) are really wonderful classics of turntable design, and they have endeared themselves to generations of music... Read More »

The other day I was thinking about what Mark Coles (Sablon Audio) had told me about how a quality AC power cord noticeably improved the sound of a turntable. Improving a system's sound by using a high-performance AC power cord on the turntable wasn't an intuitive hot-rod mod for me, and I sort of wondered if... Read More »

I'm a huge fan of Altec loudspeakers, and I really love the new websites of Altec aficionados Great Plains Audio and Gary Fischer Speakers, who are now partnering to bring music lovers the best of vintage Altec and modern loudspeakers. As you know, Gary Fischer did the restoration of my Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre... Read More »