Ron-san and I got together today to celebrate the joys of audio & music and to listen to the latest iteration of our Real Sound Adventure with the vintage McIntosh MX110 tuner-preamplifiers. To complement our listening adventures, we had a couple of superb bottles of regional wines to sample, a 2013 Walla Walla Vintners Cabernet Sauvignon, and a 2013 Anelare... Read More »

A good alternate title for this post would have been "The Real Sound Education of Jeff Day" because that is the result of Yazaki-san's and Ron-san's influence on me during our mutual adventures with the vintage McIntosh vacuum tube gear. Due to Ron's influence, I have now made the transition of being a modification observer... Read More »

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night with a major revelation? In my case my major revelation came at 2:53 a.m. last night, according to the screen on my iPhone. It was three thoughts coming together that triggered my overall revelation, but I want to tell you the story in the sequence that it occurred... Read More »

I sure have been busy lately, it seems, and I haven't been able to keep up with the blog posts I've been wanting to write for you, or to respond to your comments as speedily as I'd like to. If I forgot to answer a comment you directed at me, ping me again, because it... Read More »

Ron, Leo, and I got together to do a little listening to a variety of vintage preamplifiers last weekend, the Audio Research SP-6B, the Harmon Kardon Citation 1, and the McIntosh MX110. First we listened to Ron's vintage Audio Research SP-6B preamplifier so we could get a performance baseline for it, as we are getting ready to... Read More »

If you've been reading along about our real sound adventures with my vintage McIntosh MX110Z tuner-preamplifier, you know the modifications we did threw us a curve ball, and the resulting performance after our modifications didn't sound nearly as good as my stock MX110Z. Argh! While there were some promising aspects to the performance of my modified MX110Z, we basically struck... Read More »

It has been bitterly cold here in my part of the Pacific Northwest until this last week, when temperatures soared into the high 40's and low 50's (Fahrenheit). The skiers & snow boarders have been happy with all the snow in the mountains, but us bicycle riders in the flatlands a little less so. The previous... Read More »

Normally when I hear the phrase 'The Power of the Orchestra' it makes me think of the famous Kingsway Hall recording by Kenneth Wilkinson of René Leibowitz conducting The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing Pictures At An Exhibition & Night On Bare Mountain (RCA VCS-2659), which has long been on Harry Pearson's Super LP List, and renowned for its remarkable dynamics,... Read More »

Ron, Leo, and I got together last weekend to listen to a trio of vintage McIntosh MX110s variously modified by Ron-san with Real Sound modifications as suggested by Yazaki-san, which are similar to the modifications Yazaki-san has performed on his personal vintage Marantz 7 preamplifier. Prior to being modified by Ron-san, two of the MX110s were restored -... Read More »

Happy 2016 my friends, and thank you all so much for all the well wishes in closing out 2015, I truly appreciate it! I want to start the New Year of 2016 with a post about the last thing I mentioned in my last post of 2015 - the Altec A5 VOTT Project. The Altec-Lansing Voice... Read More »

The waning hours of 2015 are upon us, and I thought I'd make my last post for 2015 a look back on the year. This past year has had so many highlights it boggles my mind as I think back on it, and I’m so thankful that I was able to share all my audio &... Read More »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

Due to your critical acclaim, the Jeff's Place Readers' Choice Award unanimously goes to Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki's 'Real Sound' recommendations for the Western Electric WE16GA wire and the Belden 8402 microphone cable. I particularly liked the way that Mark Paul said it in his nomination to me for the Readers' Choice Award, "I think it’s safe... Read More »

The call for Positive Feedback writers to submit their annual Writers' Choice Awards came out yesterday from Editors Dave & David.   It’s always an exciting time of year when the Positive Feedback Writer’s Choice Awards roll around, as it provides a time for me to reflect back on the past year and think about its... Read More »