The Hifi Podcast with Darren and Duncan

When someone named Spammy emails you, you have a choice: flag as a phishing threat, or read in entirety? Well, we do get a kick out of seeing the moniker appear in our mailbox, from a listener whose skewering takes leave us chuckling every time. While most emailers use the show email to send questions, Spammy mostly offers witty commentary with no indication of a need for help and gives off the sense that he's seen it all. But this week, we've got a real honest-to-goodness question from the man. We're assuming it's a man. So the guys take on a comment/question related to the Philips Hue light bulbs and bars that have been mentioned previously on the show, which leads to a longer discussion about switch-mode and other noise in the listening room. The album recommendation this week comes from Darren's library as an old favorite.

By popular demand, we present the new lost Dunlavy episode. Longtime listeners know that Darren and Duncan originally recorded 10 podcasts before publishing the very first one, as practice. One of those, referenced in early talks about the guys' dearly beloved Dunlavy speakers, was a thorough explanation of how they landed them for free, and insights gleaned from owning them. As requested, the guys do another complete Dunlavy-focused episode, but this time with new insights and a lot more info about the eponymous designer, John Dunlavy. The album recommendation pulls out a gem from a very talented young person's already swelling discography.

With apologies for the delay, and for the audio which was nearly impossible to fix, the guys are back to answer a question from listener Rob Shrode. This episode is about the idea of a special price point threshold in each product category above which one can expect substantial performance improvement compared to below the threshold. As usual, it's not as simple a topic as it seems. The recommended album of the week is the eponymous debut from a brand new, hotshot-laden folk and bluegrass troupe assembled by the always impressive Chris Eldridge.

The HiFi Podcast is back with a tech-centric take on FM Radio, answering a listener question and delving into why so many audiophiles gravitate toward it as a favorite source. As so many conversations do, this one meanders toward noise and distortion, but Darren's take on the loveliness of the sound of FM may surprise you. Brazilian musician Fabiano do Nascimento joins an elite group of artists with more than one album recommended.

In this episode, a listener requests a deeper dive into room treatment for optimizing sound in a HiFi listening space, and the fellas oblige. In fact, Darren and Duncan leap at the chance to talk about the curious look of some commercial treatment products, bemoan the high prices of some seemingly cheap-to-develop elements, and generally touch on many important elements of the entire equation. The Album of The Week this time hits a different genre than usual, with a record from one of the top modern choral groups recording today.

Welcome to the new season and new format for The HiFi Podcast. This time, the boys are back and apparently recording under a popular confluence of flight paths, but if you can get past the air traffic noise, this episode is one you don't want to miss. Darren dives deep into the makeup and uses and pros and cons of Gallium-Nitride Field Effect Transistors, or GaN FETs. This is thanks to a listener question, and if you would like to prompt a podcast topic, be sure to contact us via our website. This episode's Album of the Week recommendation is an intimate date with a very creative and nuanced artist named Mitski.

Apologies for the wait. Apologies for the sound glitches and skips in this one - still figuring out the new mobile recording rig. But the boys of The HiFi Podcast are back, and in this pre-season announcement, Darren and Duncan explain the plan for the next chapter of the podcast, which will now be divided into seasons and feature shorter but more focused episodes. Listen through to the end to hear the new album of the week, and stay tuned and hold tight while the guys get busy pre-recording the next season of your favorite HiFi show. Don't forget to send in your questions, as the next few seasons will feature topics prompted by our listeners.

Fresh off the heels of AXPONA (and right on the precipice of Munich), Duncan talks about the details involved in planning a show appearance and gives a behind-the-scenes look at the show from a manufacturer's perspective. Questions about capacitors, audio literature, gain balancing and more are answered, and this episode features not one, but two recommended albums. Saving the best for last, the show finishes with an interview with author, poet, professor, audio reviewer and occasional fly fisher Garret Hongo.

Well, it's finally happened. Your favorite podcast has dusted off the microphone and is getting itself back in gear after a few months shy of a yearlong hiatus. For new listeners, this should serve as a fine guide for ingesting the nearly 200 hours of previously published audio talk. For long-timers, you'll find out why we took a break, and what's ahead for the show. This episode's album recommendation comes from a familiar name to podcast listeners, an artist who traveled to Cuba to record this stunning duet which Duncan considers already to be 2023's best recording.

After a visit to chez Tweak to hear the always-improving desktop system, Darren decided to push Duncan into a project the best way he knew how: by giving him a pair of Seas Excel tweeters and posing the question, "what if you had state-of-the-art soft domes in that thing?" Talking, of course, about Duncan's improbably excellent 2-day speaker project, and in this episode the guys talk about the next possible iteration of the silly little first-order gems. Listener questions are answered, a blind study on network switches is shared, and the album of the week ventures into Brazilian tradition.