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Decades of hi-fi tweaks taught Paul Bowes that optimizing gear—not endless upgrades—unlocks music’s full potential. From speaker placement to EMI fixes, these methods elevate performance dramatically.
Affordable hi-fi tweaks like ferrite cores, Sorbothane pads, and mains conditioners offer subtle but measurable improvements, tackling interference, vibrations, and noise in your audio setup.
Eighty-four years ago, Disney released Fantasia, and the world would never look at animated films—or hear classical music—the same way again. November 13, 1940, marked the debut of a cinematic experiment so ambitious it might’ve seemed crazy at the time. A cartoon? Sure. But a cartoon with no dialogue, featuring Bach, Beethoven, and Stravinsky? This…
Music and the search for better sound reproduction have always been my passion. I realized, early on, that bass was a big part of what I liked about sound and critical for the music to elicit in me an emotional response. But to achieve ultimate bass—the deepest, most solid, most seamless bass—requires getting many things…
In the pantheon of rock and pop gods, few names resonate as powerfully as Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson. Now imagine, if you will, the sheer cosmic magnitude of these two titans crossing paths, not on a stage, but in the intimate confines of a recording studio. Yes, it happened. Freddie Mercury, the flamboyant frontman…
George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh was an unqualified success, and the first-ever pop concert for charity.
David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is often seen as a turning point not just in his career, but in the landscape of rock music itself. Released on June 16, 1972, this album introduced the world to Ziggy Stardust, an androgynous, bisexual alien rock star. But the…
I’ve listened to many audio setups over the years but I only recently heard a “cost-no-object” system. It happened in the Focal-Naim showroom at Montreal Audiofest 2024. Its cost? Close to $1 million dollars if you include cables and acoustic treatment. My verdict? Mind-blowingly good, and I’m not someone who would naturally equate higher price…
Feng-Shui Hi-Fi Debuts Cutting-Edge Audio Tech: Because Chi is the New High Fidelity Ever paused your favorite track to consider if your speakers might prefer facing the door rather than your sofa? Or if your subwoofer wants to align with the room’s energy flow? Welcome to the world of Feng-Shui Hi-Fi, where the traditional audio…
From the PMA vault, this article was initially published in August 2022 and is worth revisiting. One of my favourite and most memorable listening experiences this year was of the state-of-the-art Dayton Wright Hommage (French for Homage) loudspeaker, a cutting-edge re-imagining and redesign of the Dayton Wright XG-10 of yore. The Hommage uses nine XG-10…
“Relying only on one’s ears to find the ideal placement for a subwoofer, without the help of measurement software, is a bad strategy, in my opinion.”
“Selling England was where, I think, it all really came together for the band.”
These amplifiers offer extraordinarily high current, low distortion, a MOSFET output stage, and state-of-the-art topologies. And they’re on special for a limited time.
In the luminous haze of the early ’90s, hair metal’s excesses dominated, and pop melodies entranced. But from Aberdeen, Washington, a distinct sound was about to change everything. Nirvana’s “Nevermind”, released on September 24, 1991, catapulted grunge into mainstream consciousness, redefining rock’s boundaries and societal conventions. The stories embedded within Nirvana’s “Nevermind” are as captivating…
In Part 1, I mentioned the phenomenon of thinking overpowering listening as the main culprit that diminishes our music-listening pleasure. Three kinds of thoughts are most detrimental to our listening experiences, and they start with A, D, and E respectively. They are: Aversions, Desires, Expectations Let’s explore each. 1. Aversions Maybe you find the bass…