Paul’s been an audiophile for longer than many of his listeners have been on the planet. When did he first know the bug had bitten and what was the story of his introduction to high-end audio?

In the US we rely upon 60Hz for our power and in other parts of the world there’s 50Hz and double the wall voltage. If we had our choice what would be the best sounding frequency and voltage for high-end audio?

We hear of balanced and unbalanced audio inputs but what does it mean to be fully balanced? Is it something on the inside of the equipment? Paul explains how it works and why it’s important.

We’re familiar with two-way, three-way, even coaxial single driver speakers, but 2.5-way speakers? What the heck is that? Paul gives us the lowdown on this rare breed of speaker that may just be more marketing than technical.

It is typical to use the headphone jack on the equipment or purchase a separate headphone amplifier, but what about driving high-quality headphones directly from the preamplifier out?

At one time sonic holography was all the rage but now you hear nothing much about it. How does Bob Carver’s Sonic Hologram generator work, what did it do, and how did it do it? Paul also shares his own patented invention, the Spatial Projector.

If two woofers share the same box should they be in phase or push-pull and out of phase for best performance? This great DIY question prompts Paul to show off the new PS Audio speaker reference model from Arnie Nudell.

Winner of this week’s Snake and Chicken award, this classic question comes alive once more as Paul adds another twist to the problem of measurements on equipment vs. how our ears measure sound quality. If you want to know what’s really happening this is a good one to watch.

Does sound quality vary between ripping digital audio data from a CD or copying it from a streaming service? Our questioner wants to know because he’s concerned about the increasing number of errors on his discs.

CDs are read by lasers and their optical outputs seem like they should be connected directly to the DAC via the optical cable. Is that true? And, if not, how does it work?