Greetings music lovers, and welcome to Jeff's Place! I hope you are doing well, and that life is treating you kindly. I can't believe it is March 2022 already. The days seem to be racing past right now. I'm finding it challenging to keep up with everything going on that I want to do, and to... Read More »

With 2020 in the rearview mirror, I had hoped 2021 would usher in a reprieve from our troubled world, but it was not to be. Locally, we've had weeks of 100F+ weather, smoke from wildfires filling the air, and the delta variant of the coronavirus is filling the local hospitals to overflow with unvaccinated (mostly)... Read More »

Vintage Altec loudspeakers generate a lot of enthusiasm among audio nuts like me because they run circles around many modern loudspeakers in terms of musicality, at least once you get some Hiraga-style crossovers installed in them, and they are so sensitive that you can easily drive them with low-powered single-ended-triode or single-ended-pentode amplifiers to live-like... Read More »

I love to write posts for you about audio and music, but my project management gene just kicked in, so I thought I'd tell you about what to expect to read about in the next few months of scheduled audio adventures here at Jeff's Place. My first goal is to transfer the Duelund CAST tinned-copper... Read More »

I've gone completely bonkers over vintage Altec loudspeakers, which comes as no surprise to you if you're a regular reader of Jeff's Place.  It's not that there aren't other speakers I enjoy listening to, like my Westminster's, for example, but there's just something really special about the way Altec loudspeakers play the music. Ok, so... 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 »

It's been an incredibly hectic week on all fronts, and I feel like I've been sprinting to keep up! I've been writing up my listening impressions for the Positive Feedback review of the new Soundsmith Zephyr Mk III phonograph cartridge from Peter Ledermann, and you should see that review published in the next week or... Read More »

After a couple cups of coffee this morning, I sat down and practiced my fingerstyle guitar lesson for about an hour. I'm enjoying working my way through a beginning fingerstyle guitar course book, in hopes that I'll become a better guitar player (it wouldn't take much! 😉 ). One of my goals in retirement has... Read More »

I'm a huge fan of integrated amplifiers. In fact some of the finest amplification I've ever had the pleasure to listen to music with has come from integrated amplifiers, like the Leben CS-600 and the Spec RSA-M3 EX. I get quite a few messages from integrated amplifier owners asking me what separate components would better the... 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 »

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 »

It has been a busy audio weekend, and I'm trying to get caught back up after Jeff's Place going down due to the hacking event last week. The good news is that you've encouraged me to keep going with Jeff's Place for the foreseeable future. I was pretty discouraged after the hacking event, but with all... Read More »

I'm hard at work this weekend writing up the Lefson resistor review for Positive Feedback.  I hope to get the review all finished up and published in the next week or two. Here's a little sneak peek until then! Enjoy! Lefson: French High-End Analog Audio Devices - The Lefson Resistor By Jeff Day I have been... Read More »

This morning I'm writing the introductory part of the Lefson resistor article for Positive Feedback while listening to music, with plans to write up listening impressions on how the Lefson resistors performed in my Altec A7 Voice of the Theatre project crossovers tomorrow, and hopefully write a summary & conclusions section before the end of the weekend. I hope... Read More »

This is the fifth post I've written about the Lefson resistors that are manufactured by Xavier Lefebvre in Wormhout, France. Let me summarize what I've written about Lefson until now: In my first post I introduced the three product lines of carbon/silver audio resistors that are available from Lefson, the Premium, the Supra, and Ultra. The Premium resistor from Lefson is... Read More »

There's so many new readers at Jeff's Place these days, that I thought it would be a nice idea to go over the purpose of my Jeff's Place audio blog again, describe where it fits in my spectrum for audio reviewing and reportage, discuss my reviewing methodology, my biases & preferences, and give you a 'master list' of... Read More »

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this post, there’s so many good audio things happening right now I thought I’d better write a quick survey for you about all the things that are in play, culminating with my ‘roadmap’ for writing about it all in the near future. ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ I introduced Xavier Lefebvre and Lefson Analog... Read More »

What do you do when you wake up at 2:30 a.m. with your mind working overtime about all the possibilities in life? My approach this morning was to fire up the espresso machine, have a double shot, and then continue with the Lefson resistor adventure! I listened again this morning to the 10R Lefson Premium silver/carbon resistor in... Read More »

If you read my previous Lefson post about the Lefson resistors provided to me by Xavier Lefebvre, who owns and operates Lefson, you know that I am gearing up to write about the three lines of custom and hand-crafted Lefson resistors for Positive Feedback. I asked Xavier if he would tell us a little bit about himself... Read More »

I received a message from Dr. David Robinson, Managing Editor of Positive Feedback, asking me if I could write about the three new ranges of carbon/silver audio resistors from Lefson in Wormhout, France, and he put me in touch with owner Xavier Lefebvre so we could talk about the possibilities. Lefson makes an impressive array of high-performance... 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 »

Those of you have been reading along know that Frederik Carøe of Duelund Coherent Audio really wowed me (and many of you) with the debut of his impressive Duelund DCA16GA tinned-copper ‘tone wire’ that is an affordable musical marvel. Then hot on the heels of the DCA16GA, Frederik sent me some 0.22uF/400V Duelund CAST tinned-copper prototype electronics capacitors... Read More »

Thanksgiving kicks off the Holiday Season in the States, and I want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! I have a lot to be thankful for, when reflecting back upon the past year, but it's also been a tough year with the passing of my Dad, and due to some health crises for my Mom,... Read More »