Integrated Amp discussion...

[Mangoman]

Hello, First post and a long time lurker. I've been given the "Go-ahead dear" from my wife to upgrade our current set up which has been the same for about 15 years. I've got an older set of Klipsch reference series speakers that I bought as a set from a retailer here in Minneapolis, and have been powering them with various Denon AVR's. The last upgrade was from about 7-ish years ago to a more powerful Denon AVR (Guessing it is a 2800 model something....total guess as I am at the office). Speakers are a pair of front towers, a center, sub, and two rears. The rears are not hooked up and we really only use the towers and the sub.

Now, most of the current listening will is of just basic TV....my wife is not one to let me crank the movie soundtrack for full effect, so we are looking at a 2.1 type system. We have started collecting vinyl, and want to really start listening to music regularly (do about 3 times per week right now) at a moderate level. so, I am estimating that the system will be 60/40 music to TV (mostly Sports). The room is a basement that is about 12ft wide, 18 feet deep and rectangular until the back wall where it turns to the side for a bar. Ceiling is 8 feet. Main listening area is about 13 feet from front wall.

So my real question is coming up,.... this is obviously a rabbit hole, and I have been listening to a ton of stuff.... Yes, the super high end stuff is nice, but I am not gonna drop that much $$.... I do like the idea of either a set of compact towers and a sub, or some nice book shelf speakers and two subs. Definitely want something integrated......SO.....

When I started this whole process, and asked a lot of questions, the sales guy went right to McIntosh MA5200 and some B&W 805D3's. Yep. Expensive spot to start. Ive then demod a lot and am looking at Hegel, with some Focal (Sopra No1's or Kanta towers) and an SVS sub (among some others). Then I read about how the amp, given you have enough power/headroom, isn't that big of a difference until you really spend $$ and the real issue is the quality of the DAC and/or the Phono pre-amp. Is this where I should be looking first and foremost when evaluating an amp? Or is there really a difference vs me just getting a new(er) Denon with a good DAC? Is the McIntosh (or hegel, etc)really that superior once I get it in the house? Or is it the speakers and setting things up right in the room?

I just want to buy once and cry once as they say, so I know I am probably only getting one more shot at this in my lifetime. Obviously, the budget is a big driver of options, but I would not have a problem spending up to $12/15K on the right set up, but of course, would love to spend less. I just don't want to spend that much and wonder if I would have been just as happy with spending $4k, or if I spend 4k, would i be leaving a ton on the table. Yes, I know....go listen, and I do, but I am just trying to get a solid, unbiased (read: non sales person) opinion on where the true value lies in getting a new system.

Thank you for your comments in advance!

 

[Mikado463]

1) start with speaker selection first

2) select appropriate power in receiver, integrated or separates (your choice). As for phono pre, myself I prefer a stand alone unit for most will give you greater flexibility with regards to cartridge loading as well as configuring MM vs. low out put MC's

Given your budget guidelines I'd spend at least half to two thirds on speakers and acoustic treating of your room.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Speakers are far and away the biggest difference in a system. After the speakers comes the room, setup, and it's acoustics. The nice thing about the room, setup, and acoustics is that it doesn't have to be expensive. A lot of it is free or relatively cheap.

As for the electronics, I think you will find that for any amount of money, the amplifiers, dacs, etc. don't make a huge difference. I often can't help myself from obsessing over some of the technological marvels out there that have allowed amplifiers, preamps, and dacs with technical perfection. Is it audible? I don't know, but it's impressive.

As for electronics, I really like NAD's gear. I think it's a great value and if you buy any of their gear with the Bluesound BluOS, you get access to a lot of really good streaming capabilities (and the ability to add multiroom wireless sound). It's my favorite of these systems right now, and I've used them all (SONOS, HEOS, Musicast, etc.). You might be skeptical if you haven't upgraded in a long time and you've never used these systems, but I find them indispensable. A Tidal account and one of these softwares gives you access to CD quality (or better) music, 10's of thousands of tracks, instantly. The really good NAD gear, like the Master series, uses Hypex Ncore amplifier modules and really good DAC's.

For a lot less money, I have a Yamaha R-N803 network stereo receiver. It has an ESS Sabre dac and Musicast ability along with a beefy 100 watt amp. May not sound like much, but this stereo 100 watt receiver has a power supply as big as most modern 7+ channel receivers. It's on long-term loan from Yamaha and so far I'm very impressed. The Musicast software isn't quite at the same level as BluOS, but it's still really good. It's setup in my office with a set of Outlaw Audio BLSv2 speakers and I absolutely love this setup. I use it every day while I work.

As for phono preamps, there are a ton out there. I was supposed to do a review of a bunch of cheap ones and ended up canceling the article before all the samples came. I plan to revisit this in the future. It did give me a chance to try out a handful of phono preamps. Here again I find that todays electronics are just so good that there aren't the kinds of differences there used to be. The NAD integrated amps actually come with a decent phono preamp. When I compared it to my modified Musical Fidelity phono preamp, I actually found the newer opamps in the NAD to be quieter than the discrete circuit in my Musical Fidelity. Otherwise very similar sound.

Whatever you do, I would spend up on speakers. Get the best speakers you can for your money. I'm so particular about speakers that I hate to make overly specific recommendations. I think speakers are hugely personal and while I have strong feelings about what makes for a good speaker, I also hate for someone to not get a speaker they enjoy. If you like the sound of the Focals and the Klipsch you had before, that suggests you like a livelier treble in your speakers. That might be important in figuring out what speakers are a best fit next.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Firstly, what is it about your present setup that you are not satisfied with?
You have a 2.1 setup or desire to have, mostly vinyls and some movies on the TV and sports on the TV.
System doesn't get cranked up.
Vinyl is not known to have massive bass content requiring powerful subs.
Head room when you don't crank it up? A contradiction. Your subs would take care of the low band so there is not that much power in the rest.
A modern receiver would have features that you just don't need for a 2.1 setup. I think you present receiver is sufficiently capable.

Perhaps it is just an itch you are trying to satisfy?

 

[KEW]

Hello, First post and a long time lurker. I've been given the "Go-ahead dear" from my wife to upgrade our current set up which has been the same for about 15 years. I've got an older set of Klipsch reference series speakers that I bought as a set from a retailer here in Minneapolis, and have been powering them with various Denon AVR's. The last upgrade was from about 7-ish years ago to a more powerful Denon AVR (Guessing it is a 2800 model something....total guess as I am at the office). Speakers are a pair of front towers, a center, sub, and two rears. The rears are not hooked up and we really only use the towers and the sub.

Now, most of the current listening will is of just basic TV....my wife is not one to let me crank the movie soundtrack for full effect, so we are looking at a 2.1 type system. We have started collecting vinyl, and want to really start listening to music regularly (do about 3 times per week right now) at a moderate level. so, I am estimating that the system will be 60/40 music to TV (mostly Sports). The room is a basement that is about 12ft wide, 18 feet deep and rectangular until the back wall where it turns to the side for a bar. Ceiling is 8 feet. Main listening area is about 13 feet from front wall.

So my real question is coming up,.... this is obviously a rabbit hole, and I have been listening to a ton of stuff.... Yes, the super high end stuff is nice, but I am not gonna drop that much $$.... I do like the idea of either a set of compact towers and a sub, or some nice book shelf speakers and two subs. Definitely want something integrated......SO.....

When I started this whole process, and asked a lot of questions, the sales guy went right to McIntosh MA5200 and some B&W 805D3's. Yep. Expensive spot to start. Ive then demod a lot and am looking at Hegel, with some Focal (Sopra No1's or Kanta towers) and an SVS sub (among some others). Then I read about how the amp, given you have enough power/headroom, isn't that big of a difference until you really spend $$ and the real issue is the quality of the DAC and/or the Phono pre-amp. Is this where I should be looking first and foremost when evaluating an amp? Or is there really a difference vs me just getting a new(er) Denon with a good DAC? Is the McIntosh (or hegel, etc)really that superior once I get it in the house? Or is it the speakers and setting things up right in the room?

I just want to buy once and cry once as they say, so I know I am probably only getting one more shot at this in my lifetime. Obviously, the budget is a big driver of options, but I would not have a problem spending up to $12/15K on the right set up, but of course, would love to spend less. I just don't want to spend that much and wonder if I would have been just as happy with spending $4k, or if I spend 4k, would i be leaving a ton on the table. Yes, I know....go listen, and I do, but I am just trying to get a solid, unbiased (read: non sales person) opinion on where the true value lies in getting a new system.

Thank you for your comments in advance!

Let us know the exact Denon model when you get the chance. The Denon 2800 series were some very well built AVR's with solid amplification. Gene has bemoaned how the build quality of AVR amplification has dropped since then due to having to cram more channels and processing/features in the box without the cost getting out of control.

As has been mentioned above. Figure out your speakers first. Depending on their efficiency, there is a good chance your Denon is a very good device for your needs. I have an AVR-2308ci which has the phono pre-amp built-in. I got it for $65 off Craigslist. Based on comments from @M Code about more recent efforts to reduce AVR costs by using a design life of ~8-10 years, I expect to have a good run with this 11 year old AVR built using very mature standard amp/heatsink design! Since you have no interest in atmos or any of the other latest greatest features, why change?

As for speakers, check out the Martin-Logan electrostatic speakers (BestBuy with Magnolia Room is one place you can hear these) as something that sounds totally different from most other speakers without sounding "wrong". Not saying you will or should prefer them, but something you should check off your list before you buy your "final" speakers!

Where are you located? I wouldn't give out my street address, but if you are near a metropolitan area or simply what state will help us help you. For example, if you are in Michigan, you would do well to visit Jim Salk and check his speakers!
http://www.salksound.com/model.php?model=SS 8

If in the Atlanta Area, I know where you can hear some good speakers in your price range.

Ah! I see you are in (or near) Minneapolis! I only know of one great system in that area, but the speakers are all DIY!

 

[KEW]

On your Denon, check this thread:
https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/avr-distortions-from-entry-level-to-top-level-models.97159/

Make sure you read posts #5 and #12!
PENG put this together with the notion that the THD of an amp section is a pretty good indicator of how much attention was paid to design detail!
It is surprising that Anthem and NAD are not in the same league as the less expensive, more mass produced AVR's from D&M.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

On your Denon, check this thread:
https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/avr-distortions-from-entry-level-to-top-level-models.97159/

Make sure you read posts #5 and #12!
PENG put this together with the notion that the THD of an amp section is a pretty good indicator of how much attention was paid to design detail!
It is surprising that Anthem and NAD are not in the same league as the less expensive, more mass produced AVR's from D&M.

Just for what it’s worth, THD is not an indicator of the quality of an amplifier. It is more an indicator of how much feedback the amplifier uses. Which isn’t to say the Denon isn’t good or even better than those NAD amps, just not the means to figure that out. I would say all of those amplifiers appear to have negligible distortion, though all else being equal, looking at the harmonic components of an amplifier can be of some benefit in understanding its sound.

Also, NAD integrated amps use Hypex modules where their receivers use a class AB amplifier. The integrated amps have much lower noise and distortion. I like NAD receievers because of BlueOS and Dirac but don’t actually feel strongly about the quality of their amps.

Here is an example from one of the modules they use. It’s distortion is typically below .001%. Audibly better? Who knows, probably not. But it’s really impressive and at least you know it isn’t making anything worse.

 

[KEW]

Just for what it’s worth, THD is not an indicator of the quality of an amplifier. It is more an indicator of how much feedback the amplifier uses. Which isn’t to say the Denon isn’t good or even better than those NAD amps, just not the means to figure that out. I would say all of those amplifiers appear to have negligible distortion, though all else being equal, looking at the harmonic components of an amplifier can be of some benefit in understanding its sound.

Also, NAD integrated amps use Hypex modules where their receivers use a class AB amplifier. The integrated amps have much lower noise and distortion. I like NAD receievers because of BlueOS and Dirac but don’t actually feel strongly about the quality of their amps.

Here is an example from one of the modules they use. It’s distortion is typically below .001%. Audibly better? Who knows, probably not. But it’s really impressive and at least you know it isn’t making anything worse.
View attachment 27573

Thanks for clarifying about their integrated amps using a different design.
I realize we are not talking audible levels of distortion. I was careful with my wording to say:
"...the notion that the THD of an amp section is a pretty good indicator of how much attention was paid to design detail!"

You piqued my curiosity when you said:
"Just for what it’s worth, THD is not an indicator of the quality of an amplifier. It is more an indicator of how much feedback the amplifier uses."

So, are you saying that using an amount of feedback that reduced THD to a very low level can be problematic? My current conceptual model (which should not be confused with understanding) is they are using feedback to control distortion more effectively than the other companies and I would consider that "more attention to design detail" and an indication of quality.
If I am mistaken, I'd like to refine my conceptual model accordingly! Thanks!

 

[3db]

I rather purchase an amp with a proven reliability over a given feature set. There is nothing more fustrating than an amp letting you down. Just something to think about

 

[PENG]

Just for what it’s worth, THD is not an indicator of the quality of an amplifier. It is more an indicator of how much feedback the amplifier uses.

Haha, I know this is coming.. It is true that more negative feedback help lowering THD but may not be quite true that it is more an indicator of how much feedback the amplifier uses. NAD's class AB amplifiers, as do Anthem's also have very low THD and I am sure both know how to apply negative feedback to minimize THD without creating other adverse effects. As to audible or not, many would argue that anything less than 0.1% will not make an audible difference, it is like whether well designed amps used within their capability sound different or not, has been debated forever, who knows? We cannot deny specs verified by measurements, but we can always deny/debate the effects of the measured differences based on methodologies, and subjective listening tests.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I just want to buy once and cry once

Most dealers will want to recommend the most expensive components and tell you how awesome they sound relative to the price tag.

People won't be able to tell a significant difference among amps, preamps, and DAC's when they are given a double-blind test to remove bias and to level-match.

In Direct/Bypass/Through modes, you won't hear a significant difference among all these amps, integrated amps, and AVRs.

There will be a significant difference if you use any kind of EQ (room EQ like YPAO, Audyssey, Dirac, ARC, Trinnov, Lyngdorf) or DSP modes.

The take-home message is, you don't have to spend any more than $500-1,000 on integrated amps or Receivers for great sound quality.

More expensive components may (or may not) give you more reliability, especially these days.

So spending a lot upfront may still cause you to cry a lot later.

The salient things are the speakers, subs, room, and setup.

 

[Irvrobinson]

Just for what it’s worth, THD is not an indicator of the quality of an amplifier. It is more an indicator of how much feedback the amplifier uses. Which isn’t to say the Denon isn’t good or even better than those NAD amps, just not the means to figure that out. I would say all of those amplifiers appear to have negligible distortion, though all else being equal, looking at the harmonic components of an amplifier can be of some benefit in understanding its sound.

Also, NAD integrated amps use Hypex modules where their receivers use a class AB amplifier. The integrated amps have much lower noise and distortion. I like NAD receievers because of BlueOS and Dirac but don’t actually feel strongly about the quality of their amps.

Here is an example from one of the modules they use. It’s distortion is typically below .001%. Audibly better? Who knows, probably not. But it’s really impressive and at least you know it isn’t making anything worse.
View attachment 27573

Maybe I'm just a dinosaur about audio amplifiers, but I still can't get past the fact that the Hypex measurements must be done with AES17 brick wall filters. I'm fine with Class D amps in my subwoofers (since they're used with a low-pass filter anyway) ,but I just can't get comfortable feeding that ultrasonic crap to my over-priced tweeters. Or has there been a Class D innovation introduced I'm not aware of?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I would not have a problem spending up to $12/15K

That sounds extremely exciting.

I'm sure most of us here are willing to vicariously spend your money for you.

I think you should focus on 2 different threads - one for the Speakers and one for the Amps, both are huge topic, especially the speakers.

As you say, this is probably a once-in-a-lifetime event. So take 6-12 months if you need. Do not buy anything until you have actually listened to many high-end speakers for reference - Revel Salon2, B&W 800D, KEF Reference, Focal, Dynaudio, RBH, Paradigm, etc.

You don't want to spend all that money and still have to wonder how it compares to all the popular high-end speakers.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Thanks for clarifying about their integrated amps using a different design.
I realize we are not talking audible levels of distortion. I was careful with my wording to say:
"...the notion that the THD of an amp section is a pretty good indicator of how much attention was paid to design detail!"

You piqued my curiosity when you said:
"Just for what it’s worth, THD is not an indicator of the quality of an amplifier. It is more an indicator of how much feedback the amplifier uses."

So, are you saying that using an amount of feedback that reduced THD to a very low level can be problematic? My current conceptual model (which should not be confused with understanding) is they are using feedback to control distortion more effectively than the other companies and I would consider that "more attention to design detail" and an indication of quality.
If I am mistaken, I'd like to refine my conceptual model accordingly! Thanks!

Adding a lot of negative feedback causes higher order harmonics to rise in level at the expense of lower harmonics. So you get power total THD but you increase problematic distortion. Simply adding feedback isn’t necessarily a good thing. The nice thing about the most current state of the art amps is that they have found ways to apply really high levels of feedback that lowers all distortion. The THX AAA amps and the Hypex NCore are my best examples.

Another problem is that feedback can be added in a manner that causes distortion to be really low in the bass and treble, but there ends up being an inflection in the high frequencies where distortion rises dramatically. I believe it’s caused by not enough open loop gain. In any case this can be problematic because it may cause a rise in distortion that doesn’t necessarily dramatically increase THD but is still very audible.

There is also switching distortion. Thd won’t show anything with switching distortion and those power vs THD charts are typically swamped by noise at low power levels. There is research to show that switching distortion is among the most audible and a blanket THD test won’t show this. It requires special testing to show this. That doesn’t mean we need class A amps, just that a poorly designed class AB or Class D may have audible distortion that isn’t being detected by that test.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Haha, I know this is coming.. It is true that more negative feedback help lowering THD but may not be quite true that it is more an indicator of how much feedback the amplifier uses. NAD's class AB amplifiers, as do Anthem's also have very low THD and I am sure both know how to apply negative feedback to minimize THD without creating other adverse effects. As to audible or not, many would argue that anything less than 0.1% will not make an audible difference, it is like whether well designed amps used within their capability sound different or not, has been debated forever, who knows? We cannot deny specs verified by measurements, but we can always deny/debate the effects of the measured differences based on methodologies, and subjective listening tests.

I was more getting at the idea that a lot of amps started to have really low distortion but wouldn’t really sound any different or better simply because parts and parts matching became better, and it became easier to add feedback. In the early 2000’s it got a bit out of control and started to have negative consequences where the amount of negative feedback was so high that high order harmonics became audibly raised. Hypex and THX spent a lot of time redesigning the feedback loops and gain structure to ensure that the amps could have sufficient high negative feedback across the bandwidth without raising any harmonics to audibly high levels.

I think there is good objective research that shows THD is a poor indicator of quality. It doesn’t correlate with distortion detection thresholds. An amp can have 8% THD and not be detected and .1% and be detected. The THD graph could look the same for two amps at .1% and yet one could have audible distortion while the other doesn’t. That’s because it doesn’t weight the harmonics by frequency or harmonic when it combines them.

It isn’t subjectivity so much as a bad measure of an amplifier. It’s not really a metric of significance. It’s like using a cars 0-60 time as a measure of how fast it will be around VIR. If that’s your metric, and you never measure VIR, then it’s easy to engineer a car that has lower and lower 0-60 times and that will have nothing to do with VIR track times.

 

[Matthew J Poes]

Maybe I'm just a dinosaur about audio amplifiers, but I still can't get past the fact that the Hypex measurements must be done with AES17 brick wall filters. I'm fine with Class D amps in my subwoofers (since they're used with a low-pass filter anyway) ,but I just can't get comfortable feeding that ultrasonic crap to my over-priced tweeters. Or has there been a Class D innovation introduced I'm not aware of?

That’s a measurement issue more than a practical one. Your talking about switching noise of ~300mv at 450khz. Your tweeter won’t reproduce that nor will it likely damage them. The inductance and capacitance is the cables and tweeter coil should itself dampen that quite a bit. I guess it isn’t a problem that concerns me.

 

[PENG]

I was more getting at the idea that a lot of amps started to have really low distortion but wouldn’t really sound any different or better simply because parts and parts matching became better, and it became easier to add feedback. In the early 2000’s it got a bit out of control and started to have negative consequences where the amount of negative feedback was so high that high order harmonics became audibly raised. Hypex and THX spent a lot of time redesigning the feedback loops and gain structure to ensure that the amps could have sufficient high negative feedback across the bandwidth without raising any harmonics to audibly high levels.

I think there is good objective research that shows THD is a poor indicator of quality. It doesn’t correlate with distortion detection thresholds. An amp can have 8% THD and not be detected and .1% and be detected. The THD graph could look the same for two amps at .1% and yet one could have audible distortion while the other doesn’t. That’s because it doesn’t weight the harmonics by frequency or harmonic when it combines them.

It isn’t subjectivity so much as a bad measure of an amplifier. It’s not really a metric of significance. It’s like using a cars 0-60 time as a measure of how fast it will be around VIR. If that’s your metric, and you never measure VIR, then it’s easy to engineer a car that has lower and lower 0-60 times and that will have nothing to do with VIR track times.

Point taken but I think you may be taking that to the extreme. Total is total, if THD is 0.1%, the individual harmonics are not going to be significant compare to one that has 8%. If it is a class AB amps, that 8% THD amp is not going to sound good regardless. I do look at the spectrum graphs as well, some reviews do include them in their bench tests, most don't, unfortunately.

 

[Irvrobinson]

That’s a measurement issue more than a practical one. Your talking about switching noise of ~300mv at 450khz. Your tweeter won’t reproduce that nor will it likely damage them. The inductance and capacitance is the cables and tweeter coil should itself dampen that quite a bit. I guess it isn’t a problem that concerns me.

That's why I'm a dinosaur; it concerns me. Sticking a second-order analog L-C filter in the amplifier output path, with whatever associated side-effects they might entail, and then specifying that the published measurements will be strictly limited to 20KHz feels like don't-pay-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain. Class AB audio amplifiers are just too high performing and well understood for me to evolve into a bird and fly with the Class D products.

 

[M Code]

An amplifier designed with high feedback will often sound terrible when driven hard by a high dynamic range source.... Now U are stepping in John Curl's territory for TIM..
Some of the well-known/experienced amplifier designers I have worked with over the years, will design the amplifier 1st with no feedback and then will add a minimum of feedback...

Just my $0.02...

 

[PENG]

An amplifier designed with high feedback will often sound terrible when driven hard by a high dynamic range source.... Now U are stepping in John Curl's territory for TIM..
Some of the well-known/experienced amplifier designers I have worked with over the years, will design the amplifier 1st with no feedback and then will add a minimum of feedback...

Just my $0.02...

I read many of those articles, not so much JC, much more so Nelson Pass. It's one of those those things, while often true in many cases, but got into trouble with the internet hearsay, taken out of context; and get overrated in the process.

For every interesting article, there is always another that is also interesting, here's one:
https://www.edn.com/design/consumer/4418798/Negative-feedback-in-audio-amplifiers--Why-there-is-no-such-thing-as-too-much

I think people typically do their best to make their point and may tend to exaggerate the relevant facts a little. Remember Crown used to advocate damper factors must be so high, as to in the order of hundreds or higher? Since acquired by Harman, they seem to have remove those claims from their websites. Just my 0.002 cent.