Archives: Columns

Blog No. 14: An LS3/5a For the Ages

2/2019 and posted in Hi-Fi, Reviews - Loudspeakers, Columns, Blogs, News Items - Archives

Consider this a Public Service: you are being warned, before the release date of June/July 2019, of a run of only 50 pairs of speakers guaranteed to become collectors’ items. Falcon Acoustics’ Jerry Bloomfield told me they’re making the finest … Continue reading →

Natural Born Kessler (No. 1): The Paul Klipsch Biography

Listener and posted in Hi-Fi, Columns, Books

Pretend just for a moment that you’re a civilian, not a savvy audiophile. What exactly would you know about the following?: Single-ended triodes. SACD. Cable directionality. Speaker spikes. VTA. The answer is … precisely nothing. We function in a self-contained … Continue reading →

Mondo Audio: Digital Standards, ARA and AAHEA

Audio 4/1996 and posted in Hi-Fi, Columns

  Consumer Electronics Shows might rightly be all about new products ready for the shops, but an aspect that’s rarely covered in the hi-fi magazines is the industry manoeuvring. Whether or not it means anything to you if you don’t … Continue reading →

The Kessler Column

Inside Hi-Fi 10/2004 and posted in Hi-Fi, Columns

Still don’t believe we have a serious problem on how high-end audio and home entertainment equipment is perceived? Then try this on for size:   From the Daily Mail, 1 Sept 2004, about a report on the alleged spending habits … Continue reading →

Headroom: Cables

Hi-Fi News & Record Review 8/1989 and posted in Reviews - Accessories, Columns, Hi-Fi

‘Time flies when you’re having fun.’ If that’s true, then trick cables must be an absolute barrel of laughs because – believe it or not – it’s well over a decade since Saburou Egawa in Japan and Jean Hiraga in France introduced to … Continue reading →

Kessler Column: The Vinyl Revival

The Absolute Sound and posted in Hi-Fi, Columns

One insight, after visiting a recent spate of analogue-laden hi-fi shows, was enough to turn any Baby Boomer sullen with thoughts of mortality: the current (and huge) revival in interest in the black vinyl record is due in no small … Continue reading →

Natural Born Kessler: Surround Sound Matters

Home Entertainment 11/1995 and posted in Columns, A/V

So all is well in Surround-Sound Land, eh? For once, the home entertainment merchants have standardised, right? Not. Huh? Isn’t the world of home cinema already and emphatically Dolby-Surrounded? Stop and smell the matrices, or at least look at the … Continue reading →

Mondo Audio: CE Regulations and EU Meddling

Audio 1/1996 and posted in Hi-Fi, Columns

Global “size reduction” is something we’ve been taking for granted for years. I mean, the popularity of Baywatch has probably done more to convince the world that all American women have D-cups than anything since Jane Russell in The Outlaw, … Continue reading →

Hi-Fi News Back Page – Multi-Channel

Hi-Fi News & Record Review 4/2001 and posted in Hi-Fi, Columns, A/V

To demonstrate that multi-channel sucks for pure music, just pull out any studio albums mastered for the original 4-channel formats, circa-1970. You and I know that this is fraudulent, though, because those recordings have the same validity relative to modern … Continue reading →

Headroom: Lumley, Cremonese Cloth

Hi-Fi News & Record Review 9/1989 and posted in Columns, Hi-Fi

One has to admire Raymond Lumley for plugging away with his eponymous valve amplifiers because, on the surface, his company looks just as quivery as the next. Yet despite a split with his original partner (Roy Grant, when the company … Continue reading →