Tom Gibbs

Tom Gibbs believes that the pursuit of better audio is all about enhancing one’s enjoyment of music. In between bouts of constant tinkering with his system components and loudspeaker placement, he also is a regular contributor to Positive Feedback and writes a record review column for Copper Magazine. Tom enjoys music of all genres, but has a particular soft spot for Prog and the symphonies of Vaughan Williams and Shostakovich.


  • Closing The Gap Between Analogue and Digital

    “I believe we’re living in a golden age of digital, where the differences between digital and analogue playback are becoming vanishingly low.”

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  • Can Cables and Ancillary Equipment Improve Digital Sound?

    “I’ve downloaded digital files from Qobuz and HD Tracks that were compressed by as much as 80%!”

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  • Is Digital Simply “Ones and Zeros”?

    I belong to several Facebook audio-related groups, including Streaming Music Matters, which is administered by Qobuz’s David Solomon. While the undeniable focus of the group is music-streaming via Qobuz, there are also many lively and intense tech-centred discussions covering all aspects of streaming and its associated equipment. Many of those discussions feature members from the…

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  • “No, I have the best system in the world!” An Update to #3: How Fate Brought Me To My Dream System

    I’ve heard this all before, and it basically goes like this: “Why in God’s name would I even think of pairing $1k, entry level loudspeakers with amps that retail for 3 to 10 times their price?”

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  • “No, I have the best system in the world!” #3: Inside a $50K Audiophile’s Paradise

    My setup has evolved over the last few years into one of the best I’ve ever heard anywhere, especially for one that hovers around the $50K mark, not an outlandish sum for a high-end setup.

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  • Want the Best Speaker Bargain? I’ll give you two!

    Prices for speakers are listed in USD per pair. In a recent column, I spoke of how I stumbled into what would become a lifelong obsession with flat panel Magneplanar loudspeakers. The reason I became so smitten with them is simple: they present music with a greater degree of realism than I’ve heard with any…

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  • No more cds?

    Has the whole world abandoned the spinning digital disc? It can sure feel like it!

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  • When was your audio awakening?

    A recent article by PMA Magazine editor Robert Schryer got me wondering about when I began to think of music and audio — and, specifically, of myself as an audio hobbyist. The answer to “when” can’t be clearly defined by a single moment; it’s scattered across a handful of events that took place over a…

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  • Pimping your system (on the cheap)

    Whoever said “the best things in life are free” obviously never dabbled in high end audio. That’s not to say you can’t improve the sound of the system you already have with some judicious tweaking.

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  • Measurements can suck

         As a youngster in the late sixties, I was keenly interested in music. Virtually every day, I came home from school, and after doing my homework, spent my afternoons hanging out at the family’s Philco stereo console spinning LPs. My family’s relatively meager collection of albums consisted mainly of Mom’s selection of easy listening…

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