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Articles by Ethan Winer
Enjoy the Music.com's May 2026 Audiophile And Music Industry High-End Audio News
Home | High-End Audio Reviews| Audiophile Show Reports | Partner Mags| Hi-Fi / Music News High-Performance Audio Reviews Music News, Show Reports, And More! Celebrating 30 Years Of Service To Music Lovers High-End Audio / Audiophile & Music Industry News We invite you to join our social media pages and meet music lovers and audiophiles from all around the world. Like and follow our social media pages to chat with our reviewers, industry luminaries, and our loyal followers.
Why I Love... Sound On Sound
I’ve been a professional audio engineer and musician since the early 1970s, and I’ve read pretty much every recording magazine ever published. Back then the main magazines for recording engineers and amateur enthusiasts were Recording Engineer/Producer and db. Both of those magazines featured technical articles to explain theory and explore best practices.
Enjoy the Music.com's May 2025 Audiophile And Music Industry High-End Audio News
Home | High-End Audio Reviews| Audiophile Show Reports | Partner Mags| Hi-Fi / Music News High-Performance Audio Reviews Music News, Show Reports, And More! Celebrating 30 Years Of Service To Music Lovers High-End Audio / Audiophile & Music Industry News We invite you to join our social media pages and meet music lovers and audiophiles from all around the world. Like and follow our social media pages to chat with our reviewers, industry luminaries, and our loyal followers.
How To Do A Proper Listening Test Part 1 Article By Ethan Winer
Home|High-End Audio Reviews| Audiophile Shows| Partner Mags | Hi-Fi / Music News High-Performance Audio Reviews Music News, Show Reports, And More! 30 Years Of Service To Music Lovers April 2019 How To Do A Proper Listening Test Part 1 Article By Ethan Winer There are two ways to assess the quality of audio devices: measuring and listening. Measuring is usually the better choice because the results are absolute, and repeatable because they avoid the vagaries of human hearing perception.
You Can DIY! Built-In Guitar Effects
This fresh, analog-friendly electronics DIY project is one of many DIY examples from Ethan Winer's upcoming Audio Circuits Cookbook. When I was a young guitar player in the 1960s I built fuzz-tones and other small gadgets into electric guitars for friends and local musicians. I didn’t have a way to make proper PC boards back then, so I constructed the circuits on soft plastic coffee can lids using the component leads to connect the parts together.
You Can DIY! Designing a Powerful Speech Compressor
Audio volume compressors have been a staple in recording studios, live sound venues, and broadcast studios for decades. Most are designed to limit the maximum volume level of an audio stream. The compressor described in this article works in reverse, leaving loud parts alone and instead raising the volume when it’s too soft. This is useful for transcribing conference meetings, court reporting, or any other situation where the volume level of recorded speech can vary by a large amount.
Valid Comparisons: Conducting Software & Hardware Listening Tests
In Part 1 of this article, I outlined how to conduct useful listening tests. Now we’ll look at testing specifics, beginning with software. The easiest type of listening test to set up is comparing two music files in a multitrack digital audio workstation (DAW) program. Put the files on separate tracks and then link the track solo (or mute) buttons while they’re in alternate states, so clicking either button instantly toggles between tracks A and B.
Audio Electronics: Is Digital Jitter Really a Problem? Original
Since the dawn of the digital era decades ago, the timing error known as "jitter" in A/D/A converters has been accused of harming audio fidelity. Some people claim that jitter adds audible distortion and noise, affects bass fullness, and even harms stereo imaging width and depth. This is an artifact that is difficult to generate artificially in controlled amounts so there haven't been many tests.
You Can DIY! Build the Popping P Filter
The best way to avoid popping Ps and Bs is at the source. Many people use a mesh screen filter in front of the microphone, but that’s not really necessary. Popping Ps are caused by air blasts from the performer’s mouth, so simply placing the microphone a few inches higher pointing down, or angled off to one side, will avoid this problem. But audio engineers often work after the fact and aren’t always able to control mic position.
Blast From the Past: An “Automatic” Third-Octave EQ Circa The 1970s
When I started recording professionally in the early 1970s, many recording studio control rooms and live venue sound systems were “tuned” using third-octave graphic equalizers. You’d play pink noise through the monitors, then use a microphone and third-octave Real Time Analyzer (RTA) to measure the system’s frequency response out in the audience, or at the mix position for a recording studio. The RTA’s output would guide you to adjust the equalizer to obtain a flat response.
The Evolution of Speakers Will Be Smart. But What Makes Smart Speakers Smart?
And it is important to note that most speakers introduced in this more compact class in the last 12 months have been mainly focused on completing multiroom home systems (Bluesound with the Pulse M Wireless is an example, and the Devialet Mania is another), while everything else we've seen are essentially slightly bigger Bluetooth speakers for the home. They all have smart features, but we would struggle to call those Smart Speakers.
Modern PCB Design Practices: Part 2 - Tips and Techniques
The first article about Modern PCB Design Practices, gave a general overview of board design using surface-mounted devices (SMDs) and examines current practices and methods for designing four-layer printed circuit boards.
Modern PCB Design Practices: Part 1 - An Overview of the Process
Printed circuit boards (PCBs) first appeared in the 1930s, but they didn’t become popular until the 1950s when transistors quickly began to replace tubes. Before PCBs, all the components and wires in electronic devices were manually placed and hand soldered (Photo 1). This is not only tedious and labor intensive, it’s also prone to wiring errors. Today, many electronic devices are mass produced on miniature circuit boards using parts so tiny they must be placed and soldered by precision machines.
At the Heart of Europe, Music and Audio Is a Passion. Impressions from the Warsaw Audio Video Show 2022
Poland's Audio Landscape Did things change after COVID? As most European shows have gradually returned to their “normal” this year, all eyes were at the Audio Video Show once more. Could this very accessible show remain cherished not only by Polish consumers but also attract an international audience? Historically, a lot of small East European companies have been present in Warsaw - exhibitors, distributors, and buyers.
You Can DIY! Building a Guitar-Controlled Synthesizer: VCA & VCF
As part of my ongoing guitar synthesizer project, this article presents and explains the final two key modules needed by every analog synthesizer: the Voltage Controlled Amplifier (VCA) and Voltage Controlled Filter (VFC). The control voltages that set the volume and filter frequency come mainly from the Attack Decay Sustain Release (ADSR) envelope generator shown in the June, 2022 issue of audioXpress.
From AES67 to Internet Protocol Media Experience (IPMX). An Audio Perspective on AV-over-IP Standards and Specifications
Weekly Newsletter for the Audio Industry and Audio Product Developers Product Design | Audio Electronics | Acoustics | DIY | Audio Innovations AUDIOXPRESS | VOICE COIL | LIS | SUBSCRIBE | ADVERTISE | SHOP | NEWSLETTER Solid State Logic Launches 16 Channel Origin Mixing Console As one of the main and few product announcements at the two-day short 153rd AES Convention taking place in New York, and basically hosted by the National Association of Broadcasters, Solid State Logic announced a...
You Can DIY! Building a Guitar-Controlled Synthesizer: Input Section & Pick Detector
There are two pieces needed to process input from an electric guitar: the input section’s preamplifier and noise gate, and the pick detector. The preamp amplifies the weak signal from an electric guitar’s pickup and brings it up to line level for further processing. The noise gate detects when a note is currently playing and when it stops. Of course, the pick detector signals each time a new note is picked.
You Can DIY! Building a Guitar-Controlled Synthesizer: LFO and ADSR
A Low Frequency Oscillator (LFO) is used to modulate the pitch of notes for vibrato and sweep effects, or vary the volume cyclically to create tremolo, or change the pulse width of a square wave to add animation, or sweep the frequency of a voltage controlled filter. Typical rates for an LFO range from slower than one cycle per second to around 10 cycles or even a little faster.
Testing The Premise: AC Power Coupling Into Audio Signal Cables?
Challenging the long-standing warnings that claim electromagnetic (EM) radiation from AC power cables will couple into audio signal wires to create hum. It comes down to making decisions about how you will approach your craft of live sound, and it should be different depending on the ...read more → They're related but different and have specific applications. It’s important to know which form to use to get your answers for a given application.
The Audio Voice 378: An Exciting Time for Automotive Audio. Plan to Join the AES 2022 International Automotive Audio Conference, June 8
Day 1 of the APEI series of presentations is led by DSP Concepts with the focus on Voice User Interface (VUI) and Machine Learning (MI). Day 2 of the morning session will focus on modeling and measurement with COMSOL and Harman presenters and the afternoon will focus on careers in autosound. Day 3 of the APEI session will be on Dirac’s intelligent audio processing tools.
You Can DIY! Building a Guitar-Controlled Synthesizer - Frequency to Volts and Back
In a previous article, I described my fascination with analog synthesizers and showed the “Time Machine” sample & hold circuit I designed for my current synth project that uses an electric guitar instead of a keyboard to play the musical notes.
All the Audio News that Matter. Impressions from Munich. See Everyone at NAMM!
Following four days of Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) in Barcelona, immersed in pro audio technology, I have just returned on Sunday from High End in Munich, and I can say that this is was — by far — a much more rewarding show. Not that I have a preference between high-fidelity and professional audio.
You Can DIY! Building a Guitar-Controlled Synthesizer - The Sample & Hold Time Machine
I’ve always been fascinated with synthesizers. I grew up in the 1960s when the earliest commercial models were analog, starting with the Moog Modular, a complex expensive beast. Then later the simpler and less expensive MiniMoog and ARP 2600 models were introduced, soon followed by more models from other companies. As a poor teenager I couldn’t afford to buy those, but I had a keen interest in electronics. So I set out to build my own.
CEDIA Expo Was a Great Trade Show. No COVID. But We Got Matter 1.0
Uncertainly Optimistic My second take of this show has to do with the macroeconomic environment. Although we all continue to read news and forecasts of a likely recession, extraordinary inflation, and the threat of more geopolitical instability, I remain optimistic about our industry.
Discerning Differences: How To Conduct Proper & Useful Listening Tests
There are two ways to assess the quality of audio devices: measuring and listening. Measuring is usually the better choice because the results are absolute, and repeatable because they avoid the vagaries of human hearing perception. But when measuring isn’t practical or possible, a listening test using a music source is perfectly fine.
#17: Bass Traps: Gap Or No Gap? Let's Find Out...
Editor’s Note: The author, Ethan Winer, is a principal of RealTraps, which designs and manufactures a variety of acoustic treatment products. It’s well known that an air gap behind an absorbing panel extends its effectiveness to a lower frequency. Most acoustic panels are velocity absorbers, which means they act on the wave velocity as sound waves pass through them and are converted to heat.
Bass Traps: Gap Or No Gap? Let's Find Out...
Editor’s Note: The author, Ethan Winer, is a principal of RealTraps, which designs and manufactures a variety of acoustic treatment products. It’s well known that an air gap behind an absorbing panel extends its effectiveness to a lower frequency. Most acoustic panels are velocity absorbers, which means they act on the wave velocity as sound waves pass through them and are converted to heat.
Product Design Considerations. Why It’s Harder to Produce a Sound That Is Perfect for Every Use Case
Weekly Newsletter for the Audio Industry and Audio Product Developers Product Design | Audio Electronics | Acoustics | DIY | Audio Innovations AUDIOXPRESS | VOICE COIL | LIS | SUBSCRIBE | ADVERTISE | SHOP | NEWSLETTER Multilevel Amplification Technology – Ever Heard About It in Context with Class D Amplifier ICs? No? Then this whitepaper about Infineon’s Class D audio brand MERUS™ and its multilevel amplifier ICs is just right for you.
You Can DIY! An Introduction to Measuring Rooms
"Before you start measuring and playing around with your new speakers, maybe you should know your room." The statement, inspired Ethan Winer to write this article from a very practical perspective, helping us to understand the acoustics of our own listening rooms, and how measurements will help us. The examples contained in the article use the popular Room EQ Wizard (REW) software. This article was originally published in audioXpress, August 2021.
How Big is Audio? How Big Are Wearables and Hearables? Audio Market Intelligence Update
Weekly Newsletter for the Audio Industry and Audio Product Developers Product Design | Audio Electronics | Acoustics | DIY | Audio Innovations AUDIOXPRESS | VOICE COIL | LIS | SUBSCRIBE | ADVERTISE | SHOP | NEWSLETTER Contextual Awareness: What Is It, and How Is It Being Used? Context-aware devices, such as the embedded smartphone keyboards, have been around for some time, though in a very limited form.
You Can DIY! Clever Engineering
One of the problems when designing large audio devices, (e.g., mixing consoles) is the enormous amount of wiring that’s needed. In this article for audioXpress, Ethan Winer writes about the practical ways on how to deal with wiring techniques in order to reduce the amount needed for any given project by using rotary encoders, serial communications, and other clever solutions.
Old-School DIY: How To Build An Earphone Booster Amp/Metronome Combination
There are few hard, fast rules in this world of music and art, but one thing is always for sure — the drummer wants it louder in the phones. The singers could be wracked with pain, tears in their eyes and still the drummer will want more volume. You could swear they’re all deaf. (Hmmm? … ) So here, to the rescue, we have a booster amplifier packing — hold on to your hats — a whopping 1.25 watts into a pair of 8-ohm stereo headphones.
The Equinox – Must be something in the water
“That’s an area that we’ll constantly recruit out of,” said Ryan Cain, the men’s basketball head coach at Keene State College, talking about the Central Massachusetts area. Right now, the team has three players from high schools in the central Mass area. Jeff Hunter, from Assabet Valley, is a returning starter who enters his second year at KSC. Nick Redden, from Algonquin Regional, is also a second year player who contributed off the bench last year.
The Equinox – KSC maintains low COVID-19 incident rate
“I’m surprised we haven’t seen more [positive cases] and I think that’s a testament to the whole community,” said Kirk Sagner, Coordinator of the COVID-19 Rapid Response Team. Throughout this fall semester, Keene State College has done its job keeping cases to a minimum. As of November 12, just 19 have been positive out of the 33,016 tests carried out this semester. That’s a rate of over 99.9 percent negative.
The Equinox – Game highlights: Keene’s first red vs. white scrimmage 11/17/20
Men’s basketball held a Red vs. White Intrasquad Scrimmage on November 17 in Spaulding Gymnasium. The final score of the game was red squad 73, white squad 65. The white squad led for the entirity of the game until the last quarter when the red squad pulled ahead. A major highlight of the game was senior James Anozie scoring his first three-pointer in his college career.
The Equinox – Putting down the camera
Covering sports is the best. It’s that simple. Writing articles for the Equinox and filming sports at a college that I am attending is a truly unique experience. But without the work that I did covering sports in Central Mass[achusetts], I would be unprepared for the college experience, and more specifically the experience of covering college sports. During my freshman year at Nashoba Regional High School in Bolton, Massachusetts, I fell in love with filming sports.
The Equinox – Joining the Keene State parliament
“That’s an area that we’ll constantly recruit out of,” said Ryan Cain, the men’s basketball head coach at Keene State College, talking about the Central Massachusetts area. Right now, the team has three players from high schools in the central Mass area. Jeff Hunter, from Assabet Valley, is a returning starter who enters his second year at KSC. Nick Redden, from Algonquin Regional, is also a second year player who contributed off the bench last year.
The Equinox – Siblings that swim together, win together
Kiley and Tyler Young are two siblings who are on the Keene State swim team. Tyler is a third year student who has been a significant contributor starting in his sophomore year. “Tyler had to develop a little bit, which took awhile. Took probably into his freshman year,” said Chris Woolridge, the head coach of Keene State’s swimming and diving teams. “But since then, he’s taken off.
The Equinox – Basketball hits the court
January 16. That’s the date that the men’s and women’s basketball teams at Keene State College are hoping to start competing. “The actual schedule is likely to start in the middle of January,” said Ryan Cain, head coach of the men’s team. “The January 16 date has been kicked around. One of the proposals right now within our league is a single round robin. So you play everybody in our conference one time for eight regular season games.
The Equinox – Kickin’ it with men’s soccer
The Keene State College men’s soccer team is looking to make the most out of the fall season. Just like most teams at Keene State, the players started off in pods of three. However, this week they were able to get into groups of 10. “We have created a couple groups of 10; we have a group of three, that’s my goalkeepers; and another group of three that are considered increased risk players,” said Rick Scott, the head coach of the Keene State men’s soccer team.
The Equinox – Catching up with Cross Country
Despite the news of the Little East Conference cancelling fall sports, the Keene State College cross country team has been training in hopes of some sort of season. They have been training on their own throughout the off-season and are now training in pods of three. They are set to start training in groups of ten next week with the hope to move to full team practices soon. “There hasn’t been too much pressure right now.
Transducer Design and Performance Target Considerations for Next-Generation Automotive Speaker Micro-Arrays
With about 90 million new vehicles shipped in 2019 (a number that will be down in 2020, for sure) and very conservatively assuming an average of four speakers in each vehicle comes to more than 350 million speakers. The future may see very different numbers - with the pandemic far less vehicles but each with far more speakers. This new math is about in ultra-near-field microarrays for each seat.
Enjoy the Music.com's Great Audiophile Gift 2019 Special Edition -- 50 Great Gifts For Music Lovers!
High-End Audio / Audiophile Equipment Reviews And Think Pieces Great Audiophile Gift 2019 Special Edition Great Audiophile Gift Ideas 2019 50 Great Gifts For Music Lovers! Welcome to Enjoy the Music.com's 14th annual Great Audiophile Gift recommendations! We all love gifts, yet getting that something special for an audiophile can be quite a challenge.
Full House at the AES Headphone Conference in San Francisco. And Why Doesn't My Stereo Sound Like a Live Concert?
AUDIOXPRESS | VOICE COIL | LIS | SUBSCRIBE | ADVERTISE | SHOP | NEWSLETTER Industry & Product News New Application Note on Smart Speaker Acoustic Measurements Now Available Smart speakers are a relatively new class of consumer audio device with unique characteristics that make testing their audio performance difficult.
Why Doesn’t My Stereo Sound Like a Live Concert?
In this article for audioXpress, "Why Doesn’t My Stereo Sound Like a Live Concert?", Ethan Winer explains why acoustics matter and why the fidelity of your audio devices and speakers is not the reason your hi-fi doesn’t make your living room sound like you’re hearing a concert in a concert hall. This article was originally published in audioXpress, August 2019.
Alternatives to Made In China. SB Acoustics Expands Into the Pro Audio Segment and Automotive Aftermarket with Two New Brands.
Some of our Voice Coil readers - and particularly those who eagerly follow Vance Dickason's Test Bench articles have already learned that SB Acoustics has big things in the works. Over the last several years, Indonesian-based Sinar Baja E lectric (see our factory tour article here) in partnership with Danesian Audio of Denmark, has generated an excellent reputation for the high-end home and car audio drivers that have been marketed under the SB Acoustics name.
Hi-Fi Audiophile Equipment Review Magazine
High-End Audio / Audiophile Equipment Reviews May 2019 Industry News: Essential High-End Audio Info Enjoy the Music.com's audiophile news and information. HIGH END Show Report 2019 High End Society Munich GermanyHIGH END 2019 show will open their doors and welcome exhibitors and visitors from all over the world from May 9th through 12th in Munich, Germany. As during the past 19 years, longer than any other North American magazine, Enjoy the Music.com will once again report on HIGH END in Munich.
Hi-Fi Audiophile Equipment Review Magazine
High-End Audio / Audiophile Equipment Reviews April 2019 Daily News: Essential High-End Audio Info Enjoy the Music.com posts audiophile news virtually every day. Enjoy the Music.com Sponsors AXPONA 2019 Industry Mixer And All Seminars Enjoy the Music.com, a leader in CE audio equipment reviews, news and show reports, are joining AXPONA in celebrating their ten years of providing high-end audio events within North America by sponsoring their Industry Welcome Mixer and Seminar Room.
The Music Cassette Is Back, and We Talk to the Company Supplying It. And We Reviewed LabNation's SmartScope
For some of us who deeply regret not being raised with computers, DAWs, or 24-bit/96 kHz recording, we still tremble at the memories of dealing with cassettes, the hiss, the flutter, the jammed tapes, trying to record demo songs using a four-track cassette recorder... For me, probably some of the worst memories of the 1980s.
USB Oscilloscopes: A Look at the LabNation SmartScope
When Ethan Winer found himself in need of an oscilloscope, he turned to the Internet for advice and ended up selecting LabNation’s SmartScope. Described by its makers as “the oscilloscope of the new generation” the device, originally funded by a Kickstarter campaign, is targeted at makers and hobbyists, as well as professional engineers.
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