// 04 - Blog

Have you heard the news

Long-form writing on the player, the format, and the act of listening.

Apr 6, 2026

a crash, a toggle, and some tahoe cleanup

The Stereoize DSP I was so happy about yesterday turned out to have a nasty bug - it crashed on hi-res material. Which is, you know ... bad.

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Apr 6, 2026

Why Zenteek Doesn't Have a Subscription?

When I started building Zenteek, I made one decision early that shaped everything after it: no subscription. Music means identity. We can't really identify with subscription services, can we?

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Apr 5, 2026

waking up old mono recordings

I have a lot of mono recordings. Early jazz, a handful of fifties blues sides, some classical records from before stereo was a thing. They sound wonderful on a single

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Apr 4, 2026

switching over to dmg

A quick one tonight. I moved the distribution format from a zip to a proper DMG. Not glamorous, but it matters more than I thought. The zip flow was fine

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Apr 3, 2026

oversampling and better drive knobs

I couldn't leave the preamp alone. Yesterday's release went out and I immediately started hearing the places where the saturation was being a little too aggressive on high transients -

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Apr 3, 2026

four preamps and a proper output stage

Today I jumped a minor version because this one actually earns it. The signal chain got two significant additions, both things I'd been sketching out in a notebook for weeks.

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Apr 2, 2026

fine-tuning the little things

This one was all about the corners. The artwork-based color detection I put in yesterday worked, but there were edge cases.

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Apr 1, 2026

letting the album cover pick the color

I've always been a little annoyed by music players that wash every album out in the same palette.

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Apr 1, 2026

the day after ship day

The morning after a release is always quieter than you expect. No celebration, just a list of tiny things i have noticed + MCP addons.

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Mar 31, 2026

the first cut is always rough

Today I cut the first build of Zenteek Player and pushed it out into the world. It feels strange - you work on something for months in the quiet of

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Mar 22, 2026

The Loudness War and Your Music Library

If you compare a well-mastered jazz record from 1962 to a pop album from 2010, the newer record will probably sound louder through the same speakers at the same volume

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Mar 15, 2026

Why I Still Use a Local Music Library in 2026

There is something streaming services cannot give me, and I have been trying to articulate it for years. Every few months someone I respect tells me they have moved fully

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