Recent content by Feanor

Last night I listened to CD 1 of THIS set I recently acquired ... FWIW, I've never been disappointed by an Emerson recording.

The thing to understand about ASR's SINAD is that it is essentially just THD + noise. It share the same problem that single-number THD did in the '70s and '80s. Amir touts SINAD as valid because "other measurements tend to correlated" with it. Well not really, IMHO. Personally I pay a lot...

As for the '70s and '80s that was the era of the single, says-it-all, THD (total harmonic distortion). However there are components of harmonic distortion, a spectrum of various distortions that comprise the whole. The error of the era was to ignore those distortion components in favor of THD...

Personally I have found that equipment that measures extremely well also sounds great to my ear. That is, I believe there is a correlation between good measurements and subjectively good sound. But that's just me. It is still true that some folks aren't interested in the accurate sound that...

My oldest is my Sonic Frontiers Line 1 preamp, circa late '90s. Although about 3 years ago I had it renew/upgraded to "SE+" status by Parts ConneXion. Before upgrade ... Post-upgrade ...

OK, here they are. Pretty much a poor man's systems, but some pretty good: Dynaco A25 AR 7 AR 5 Braun L710 Ohm F -- sorry I sold them B&W DM7 -- sorry I bought them Magnaplanar MMG Magnaplanar MG 1.6QR Zaph Audio ZRT -- great DIY speakers comparable to 2-3X commercial

Last night, a symphony I enjoyed the longer I listened ... Krzysztof Penderecki: Symphony No. 3 ~ Antoni Wit & Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra

L. v.Beethoven: String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95 ~ Takacs Quartet L. v.Beethoven: String Quartet in E flat, Op. 127 ~ Emerson Quartet

Indeed. I've been involved with home audio for 50 year and have spent most of that reading subjective reviews. More recently I've been exposed to reviewers -- in addition to John Atkinson -- who take measurements and who may or may not report on their subjective listening impressions. Among...

The Sonic Frontiers is an all-tube preamp. My speakers are Zaph ZRT ('Zaph Revelator Towers') with slight mods.

(Don't think I've posted on this thread previously ...) I've never had a tube power amp though I've had a couple of tube preamps. Presently for the latter I'm using a Sonic Frontiers Line 1 with 'SE+' upgrades by Parts ConneXion and, at this moment, Golden Lion tubes in the gain stage -- very...

It doesn't seem that anyone has mentioned it, but leading option has got to be the Benchmark LA4 line preamp. This pre has had outstanding reviews by many critics. E.g. This ASR review (of the HPA4 version headphone amp). Or the Stereophile review. Thing about this preamp is if you're looking...

I would certainly visit the AudioShark Forum more often if I could figure out how navigation actually works. :| First, I find the thread options, (Linear, Hybrid, etc.), a bit hard to understand in their actual operation. Search is also confusing, especially the presentation of results and...

It's puzzling to me to understand what "musical" actually means, (though I have my suspicions). It's a purely subjective term -- not that there's anything wrong with subjectivity except that it provides no basis for comparison amongst people's preferences. My preference run to detail, "air"...

I'm talking about this because a lot of folks firmly believe that a linear supply is pretty much always better than a switching supply. My swap puts that very much in question, at least for me. OK, the swap was for my backup a Class D Audio SDS-258 module-based DIY amp that I've had for over a...