'What a Diff'rence a Day Makes!': The Altec A5 Voice of the Theatre Project
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 »
The Jeff Awards for 2015 ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ The SPEC RSA-M3 Real Sound Amplifier ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪
The SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier was one of my three choices for a Positive Feedback Writers' Choice Award for 2015, and for good reason, it is an amazingly good amplifier. Here's what I said in my Positive Feedback Writers' Choice Award writeup: "The beautifully built, artisanal work of passion, SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier... Read More »
An A5 'Voice of the Theatre' Christmas Carol!
It's Christmas morning here in Washington State, and I'm sitting here with a hot steaming cup of coffee, and I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Like any kid looking forward to the arrival of Christmas morning and opening the presents under the Christmas tree, I have been looking forward to the arrival of a pair... Read More »
A Handy Western Electric WE16GA Tip!
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 »
The Jeff Awards for 2015 ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ Paul McCartney's 'Unplugged' The Official Bootleg ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪
My favorite album for 2015 is Paul McCartney's Unplugged (The Official Bootleg). I've long had the CD of McCartney's Unplugged, and it is easily my favorite McCartney album, with the music & performance being superb. Just so you know, the album came out in 1991, so my CD excepting, I'm a bit late to the party. This year I decided... Read More »
A 'Real Sound' Adventure with the Vintage McIntosh MX110 Tuner-Preamplifier
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 »
Altec Lansing A5 Voice of the Theatre Loudspeakers are done!
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 »
Blast from the past! Is vintage gear better?
Over the last couple of days my audio buddies Stephaen, Harry, Kara, Pete, George, and I were talking about J. Gordon Holt's article (Stereophile) Too Good to Be True, published back in January of 1963, where Gordon asked the relevant (and somewhat disturbing question), "Does today's high-fidelity equipment, for all its vastly improved performance, actually sound that... Read More »
Listening to the Maestro's VOTTs this morning ... and other stuff!
It is another early morning of sipping coffee while listening to the custom vintage Voice of the Theatre loudspeakers that were built for Leopold Stokowski back when he lived in New York, before he moved back to London permanently. There's just something magically musical about the combination of the SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier and the Maestro's VOTTs. This... Read More »
The Jeff Awards for 2015 ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ The Woody SPU Tonearm ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪
The Woody SPU Tonearm by Pete Riggle Audio Engineering absolutely blows away my excellent Thomas Schick tonearm, much to my dismay! I've been listening for an extended period now, back and forth, on my Garrard Project 2015 player system, to my reference Thomas Schick tonearm and the Woody SPU tonearm, and it is no contest. The Woody... Read More »
The 12th Annual Positive Feedback Writers’ Choice Awards for 2015 – The Best of the Best!
The 12th Annual Positive Feedback Writers’ Choice Awards for 2015 are out and can be viewed here. My individual contribution is below. Enjoy! Positive Feedback Writers’ Choice Awards for 2015 By Jeff Day It’s always an exciting time of year when the Positive Feedback Writer’s Choice Awards roll around, as it provides a time to... Read More »
Jeff checking in ...
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 »
Happy Thanksgiving 2015!
This is the Thanksgiving Holiday week in the USA, where we commemorate a romanticized version of a 1621 harvest festival feast in which refugee Pilgrims honored a Native American man of the Patuxet tribe, named Squanto, who had taught them how to fish & plant corn, and had negotiated a peace treaty for them with the Wampanoag Nation, ensuring their survival, in their first year... Read More »
Belden 19364 Power Cords for the Vintage McIntosh MC30 Monaural Amplifiers
I'm not entirely happy with the way the Western Electric WE16GA power cords for my vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers came out. Similar to when I tried the WE16GA in a pair of RCA interconnects, the WE16GA just sounded a little too forward & direct for my Tannoy Westminster Royal SE loudspeakers. The Western Electric WE16GA sounds fantastic as speaker... Read More »
A DIY 'Vintage Tone' USB Interconnect Using 'Pushback Wire'
As I reported yesterday, my first attempt at a USB interconnect didn't go so well: "I also tried building a USB interconnect out of vintage guitar pushback wire (all the rage for re-wiring electric guitars for that beautiful ‘vintage tone’ experience), which is tinned-copper with a cotton cover, which reminds me a lot of the... Read More »
Morning Coffee with the Maestro's VOTTs & Thoughts on Vintage Tone
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 »
A Real Sound Adventure With the Vintage McIntosh MX110Z
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 »
The Vintage Beat: The Maestro's Custom VOTT Loudspeakers
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 »
Alan Kafton's audiodharma Cable Cooker
With all the cable rolling I've been doing lately with the Belden 8402 microphone cable interconnects, and the Western Electric WE16GA, I thought I should mention how handy Alan Kaftan's audiodharma Cable Cooker is for running in cables and getting them to sound their best. I use my Cable Cooker all the time on cables when... Read More »
Western Electric WE16GA Power Cords for the Vintage McIntosh MC30 Monaural Amplifiers
A couple of posts ago I told you about my adventure of building up an AC power cord with the Western Electric WE16GA and trying it out on my Mhdt Havana USB DAC. It takes a while for the Western Electric WE16GA to settle down, but I thought my newly constructed WE16GA power cord sounded promising, and... Read More »
Frank Checking In: Westminsters, Duelund, The Lark Ascending, and an Old Friend
With its cooler temperatures and wetter weather, Autumn in the Pacific Northwest is a time when life starts to shift indoors. It means kicking off new audio projects, getting the fireplace going, getting out a good book, with the muse of music stirring thoughts of the past as well as dreams for the future. So it is also with my... Read More »
The Jeff Awards for 2015 ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ Stocking Stuffers ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪
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 »
The Jeff Awards for 2015 ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪ The Vintage Beat! ¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪
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 »
The Jeff Awards for 2015 .•*¨*•♫♪ Readers' Choice Award .•*¨*•♫♪
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 »
A little bit of music for a Saturday afternoon
I just received my latest vinyl fix from Acoustic Sounds (and in case you are wondering, these aren't freebie samples, I buy them at full retail price just like you do). My order for this paycheck was Mobile Fidelity's 45RPM version of Rickie Lee Jones' first album, Rickie Lee Jones; Mobile Fidelity's 45RPM version of Miles Davis' Kind Of... Read More »
Introducing ♫♪ The Jeff Awards ♫♪ for 2015
It's always tough for me to narrow down my award choices for Positive Feedback during the annual call for the Writers' Choice Awards, so I'm starting something new: The Jeff Awards. The Jeff Awards will include the best hi-fi equipment from my formal reviews, honorable mentions of gear that hasn't been formally reviewed, and recognition for notable albums... Read More »
The Call for Positive Feedback Writers’ Choice Awards for 2015
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 »
A Western Electric WE16GA Power Cord for Friday Afternoon
When I read Marvin's comment about making some Western Electric WE16GA power cords I was intrigued, and I remembered I had some Furutech AC connectors that I had gotten for a DIY power cord project that I had never got around to. Well, better late than never I suppose, so I grabbed the Furutech AC... Read More »
Breaking News: The Duelund CAST Copper/Silver Hybrid Capacitors!
As I alluded to in yesterday's post, there have been some exciting developments on the Duelund Coherent Audio front: Frederik Carøe has announced a new copper & silver hybrid Duelund CAST capacitor that gives a big slice of the ultra-expensive pure silver Duelund CAST capacitors' performance (below) at a price very close to that of the... Read More »
Jeff checking in ... a peek into the crystal ball at what is to come!
There's a lot of exciting audio projects coming up which I think you'll find very interesting. The one that's occupying a lot of my attention right now is the upcoming Altec Lansing A5 Voice of the Theatre project. In my introductory post I mentioned that I had chosen the Altec Lansing 515E ceramic magnet low... Read More »
Another Akihabara Adventure: Yazaki-San Reporting from the "Tube Audio Show " in Akihabara in Tokyo (more show photos added)
Immediately after posting about Gary Bronner's adventure at Sun Audio in Akihabara, I received a delightful message from Yazaki-san to Gary Zabel & Daryl Stahler at Arizona Capacitors & me about another Akihabara adventure, the "Tube Audio Show" which Yazaki-san just attended. Dear Gary-san, Daryl-san and Jeff-san, "Tube Audio Show" is now held in Akihabara / Tokyo... Read More »
An Akihabara Audio Adventure: Gary Bronner's Visit to Sun Audio in Tokyo
While Gary Bronner and I were discussing the upcoming A5 'Voice of the Theatre' project, he was telling me about his recent visit to Sun Audio in Tokyo. It sounded like such a fun trip I asked Gary if it would be ok to share it with all of you, as I thought you'd all enjoy... Read More »
The Vintage Beat: The Altec Lansing A5 ‘Voice of the Theatre’ Loudspeaker Project
In 1877 Thomas Edison invented recording with the phonograph, and kicked off the acoustic era of recording that lasted until 1925, when Western Electric initiated the electrical era of recording with the development of microphones, amplifiers, disc cutting machines, loudspeakers, and sound for movies. Western Electric supported the theater movie sound business until 1936, when... Read More »
Jeff Hangin' at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2015
I just got back from the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2015 in Denver, Colorado. Kudos to Marjorie and everyone else involved, they really did a great job of putting on the show! It's been quite a while since I've ventured out to an audio show. I got burned out on them years ago, but I... Read More »
Adventures in Real Sound with Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki is now live at Positive Feedback!
I finished up my Adventures in Real Sound with Mr. Shirokazu Yazaki article yesterday, and it is now live at Positive Feedback here. It has been an immense pleasure for me to get to know Yazaki-san and to tell you about him, and his ideas & recommendations for 'Real Sound' have made a wonderful difference in my hi-fi.... Read More »
Siedy Checking In from The Netherlands: Listening Adventures With SPEC Real Sound Amps!
Listening Adventures With the Wonderful SPEC Amps! By Siedy Abee I am one of those guys who is a regular reader of Jeff's Place. It is always a great pleasure to open up Jeff's website and to read about his newest adventures. This year Jeff reported about a new amp from SPEC (here). I had never heard about the SPEC... Read More »
