Upcoming in TAS Jan 3 - One of the great mysteries of digital audio (to me, at least) is how CD transport-mechanism quality affects the sound. I'm not talking about the differences between transports as ...

The Loudness War: A Must-View YouTube Video Jan 4 - It's no secret that record companies crush the dynamic range of rock and pop releases in order to make their records sound louder during radio ...

The Next Speaker-Manufacturing Mecca is . . . Cali, Colombia? Jan 5 - China could be in for some competition as the loudspeaker manufacturing capital of the world. I know someone in the industry who ...

The Heyser Box Jan 5 - I was talking to Absolute Multimedia CEO Tom Martin recently about why subwoofers sound so different (and why we can't quantify those differences through measurement). He suggested that we're ...

How Do Professionals Listen? It's fairly well-known that recording engineers, producers, and recording artists listen at fairly high playback levels when recording and mixing. But just how loud is the mix they listen to? And ...

Audio Trivia The data rate of 44.1kHz/16-bit PCM audio as used in the CD format is 1.41 million bits per second (44,100 samples per second multiplied by 16 bits per sample, multiplied by 2 channels). ...

A Great Web Site Gets Better A powerful feature of electronic-content delivery is the ability to tailor the content you receive to your specific interests. This concept is beautifully demonstrated by Pandora, an Internet-radio Web ...

Coming up in the next The Absolute Sound We've just sent Issue 171 (April/May cover date, February 28 mail date) to the printer, and what an issue it is. For starters, the issue includes a ...

We're just putting together The Absolute Sound Issue 172 (June/July cover date, April 30 mail date) which has a special analog theme. The issue includes reviews of eight turntables ranging from $299 to $26k, six ...

Fans of the type of swing pioneered by Gypsy guitar virtuoso Django Reinhardt and violinist extraordinaire Stephane Grappelli are in for a treat from a new CD called Yerba Buena Bounce from The Hot Club ...

Excerpted and adapted from Robert Harley's new book,Introductory Guide to High-Performance Audio Systems. © 2007 by Robert Harley. Reprinted with permission. Correctly positioning your loudspeakers is the single most important thing you can do to ...

Rule #1: The listener and loudspeakers should form a triangle; without this basic setup, you'll never hear good soundstaging and imaging. The listener should sit exactly between the two loudspeakers, at a distance away from ...

Rule #3: The loudspeaker and listener positions in the room affect the audibility of room resonant modes. Room resonant modes are reinforcements and cancellations at certain frequencies that create peaks and dips in the frequency ...

Rule #5: Listening height affects tonal balance. Most loudspeakers exhibit changes in frequency response with changes in listening height. These changes affect the midrange and treble, not the bass balance. Typically, the loudspeaker will be ...

April 9 - In 1912 the Victor Talking Machines Company paid opera star Enrico Caruso a whopping 25% royalty of the $2 retail price of each disc he recordedâan arrangement that earned Caruso $90,000 a ...