Alright. I wasn’t looking for suggestions here guys. Just feedback on your opinions of personal use and from the reviews you read. Not a buying advice question. I’ve been beaten up a ton on this site before and over a long period of time. I have thick skin. Was just posting to get some conversation going on amps under 5 grand.
Okay, so you are one who not only read reviews, also listen to others opinions and have seemingly, and naturally been affected by the subjective stuff that you have read and heard.
So let me tell you my opinions, based on my experience.
Preamp and amps I have heard:
- A Fisher amp
- Some Luxman amps
- Yamaha amps, different kinds, older models
- Many Marantz amps and receivers, still own a few
- Several McIntosh separate amps, don't recall listening any of the integrated amps.
- Kenwood amp, owned one of their flag ship integrated.
- Denon amps, once or twice forgot the models
- Parasound Halo A21
- Several NAD, all integrated, still own one.
- Several Bryston amps, including monoblocks, owned one
- Several Anthem amps, owned one
- Krell amps, once or twice
- Several Hegel amps, including one low cost integrated amp
- Passlab amp, forgot the model, but it was a big and heavy one
- Passlab class A 5 W DIY amp, still own it
- AVRs from Sony, Denon, Yamaha, Pioneer and Marantz
- Two Marantz AVP
That's about all I can remember/recall quickly but I listen to a lot more of all kinds when shopping for my several hi-end (to me only, and relatively speaking only..) speakers.
If I were to rank their sound quality based of course on my own subjective first impression, it would be:
The best:
AVR-X3500H (personal armor on..
)
Bryston 4 B SST
Halo A23 and Marantz SM-7 (tie)
Hegel, model H80 and a H30 I think..
The Luxman and the Fisher (I put them last only because it was from distant memory)
The worse:
Yamaha's, thin sound, brittle, seemed to cause fatigue sooner than with others don't recall the models, it was too long ago.
No obvious difference to me between any of the ones I have owned or still own. Any difference I perceived was most likely due to mood, house tidiness/cleanliness, type of media contents listened to at the time and would never pass any simple single blind test.
So in my opinion and experience, in some cases with others in the room experiencing the same, reviews/reports of audible differences by professional and amateur reviewers online and print magazines must have naturally influenced and pre-conditioned many audioholics, audiophiles and beginners of the hobby to believe that in general, all else being equal, the more you pay the better sound you will get, and I dare say 90% of them don't realize any difference they heard would have been drowned out by even the slightest of their speakers in-room response variations, let alone distortions that are in order of magnitude higher than amps. Measurements tend to have much less effect in affecting people because most people don't understand specs other than the usual FR and THD and measurements that well. It is easy for them to say something like "there are things matter but cannot be, not simply not measured....", completely ignoring the fact that amps are products made based on matured science and technology, hardly any secret any more to design and build amps that are transparent. A lot of people, especially EEs could have done it if wish to, and have the resources to design (may be for some) and build (for sure, just about anyone) their own transparent amps.
Here's some logic one should be able to relate to, that is speaker's objective performance vs amps:
Below is the in-room response of Amir's Salon 2 (audioholics and even audiophile's favorite) that our long time member ADTG, iRV, RichB have for their serious
two channel system, so yes, its the use you want us to refer to only. One can easily see how it doesn't make sense to worry about the difference between amp specs of 16 bit vs 18 bit resolution, 0.001% vs 0.05% THD+N, FR 20-20,000 Hz +/- 0.2 dB vs +/- 0.5 dB etc etc.. as they would sound different even if compared in an anechoic chamber with the best measured speakers such as the Revel Salon 2.
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Arcam AV40 AV Processor. It was purchased by a member as "z-stock" and kindly loaned to me for testing. He said that unit arrived brand new with even the plastics undisturbed. I saw nothing in my testing that would indicate it being broken...
www.audiosciencereview.com
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Audyssey Room Equalization. Audyssey is standard technology in a number of Audio/Video Receivers such as the Denon AVR-X3600H I recently reviewed. The standard version in the AVR is mostly all or nothing so I downloaded the Marantz/Denon...
www.audiosciencereview.com
and below is one of the ranking chart Amir has on his website:
See that the $4000 to $5000 Marantz and even Arcam processors (let alone integrated amp, e.g. the Lyngdorf) cannot beat the $1,099 Denon AVR!! Note that I ranked the AVR-X3500H (that had been at $549 at its lowest discount price point) top of all amps I have heard, would have been closer to the AVR-X3600H, it was low because Amir measured it at voltage that exceeded its sweet spot when the power amp clipped and degraded its pre-amp performance. I ranked it high months before it was measured by Amir at ASR.
