Anyway, the google said the Marantz is a warmer sound and more suitable for analog, whereas the Yam is more detailed, crisper and punchier.
Hmm, I wonder when Google last had its ears tested? And did it have a good nights sleep before the test?
Seriously though. There are definitely differences between amps,
in terms of things like power before they clip and features, but when carefully set to the exact same volume and below clipping,
determined by instrumentation not ear, all credible evidence I am aware of, including my own investigation of a recording engineer I carefully tested who insisted he would be able to hear differences using his chosen music and expensive gear
, there's no good evidence competent amps sound different assuming they have adequately low noise and a flat frequency response (providing that flat response is even into complex, varying loads which tube amps and a few odd ones with a high output impedance sometimes struggle with).
If you have an interest in what scientists have concluded from carefully conducted blind tests under precisely level matched conditions* using highly regarded audiophile gear including "Stereophile Class A Recommended Component" Magnepan speakers that are six feet tall, I recommend reading this
full article I copied this from:
Their test compared 6 amps with a huge range in price from a $220 Pioneer receiver all the way to a pair if monoblocks costing $12,000 for the pair. [in current 2026 dollars that's $649 to
$35,400!] The results infuriated many high end brands who then refused to ever advertise in the magazine, so publishing this test was a brave move and financially destructive, but they did it anyways. Bravo!
I was selling high end audio at the time (1987) and read the article the very day it came out in the largest and oldest audio magazine, "Stereo Review" (later renamed "Sound and Vision" c.2000). In all these years they've never retracted anything about this test and on rare occasions they've said things which support it [example upon request], but they also have never conducted any
further testing on any other amps.
"Do All Amplifiers Sound the Same?"- Ian G. Masters, Stereo Review magazine, Jan 1987, p 78
*Because there's good evidence that very small level differences can fool us into thinking there's a difference in
quality. This includes you, me, and every human on the planet,
everyone, including the ones who claim they are "immune" to the illusion. [I myself have double blind test results showing I personally can detect differences even slightly under .5 dB, for what it's worth, and indeed it sounded to me like a difference in quality, not level, even though
I knew beforehand going into the test it was
just level!]
P.S. Differences can occur between things such as room correction technologies though. Even when using the same mic and same mic positions YPAO, Audyssey, and DIRAC receivers/integrated amps/processors, for example, may all make audibly different decisions regard what and how to "correct" the sound. My post is addressing the amp sections by themselves.
