Pearsall001 seems extremely upset
; don’t be, this is supposed to be FUN!
If I insulted your babies (your A500’s), I did not mean to.
As far as higher priced amps vs. lower priced amps, have you forgotten the post you started 2 months ago where you were talking about wanting to upgrade from your precious A500’s?
Amp pricing & diminishing returns / what's your take?
Re-read all those replies you got. All these same points I made earlier (aside from the biamping how-to’s) were made there (and even more notably, nobody got their panties in a bunch). The beauty of audio reproduction is that EVERYTHING IS RELATIVE beyond a certain point. We all have friends that don’t hear the major audible differences in our home theater or stereo set ups vs. their all-in-one systems. (I know I have one such friend, he considers himself blessed!) Ignorance can be bliss… Everyone has certain degrees of this though, being able to distinguish differences between products and not being able to do so. What sounds good to each individual is most important.
My point was simply, differences in high-end big $$$ amps vs. low priced amps CAN be a significant issue when the rest of the system is designed well enough to exhibit the differences. If any particular amp is appropriate for an individual depends on his intended application and speakers. You can’t wisely chose an amp without considering what speakers your powering with it.
Consider two examples (they are extreme cases, but bear with me). If someone has a general set of everyday speakers that are available on every street corner, will they hear much of a difference between a $300 amp and a $8000 amp? No, of course not. That system is already bottlenecked significantly by the speakers. Take those same two hypothetical amplifiers and put them in a system with more revealing speakers then you bet the quality of amp makes a difference; anyone who’s had a nice pair of Magnepans or Thiels (made right here in Kentucky!) can tell you how revealing they are of lesser amplifiers and prepro’s and how limiting such electronics can be. If you want to reach the full potential of revealing and demanding speakers such as Maggies or Thiels, then you have to be conscious of what you choose when buying your electronics. Anyone who says that’s ‘BS’ should probably reconsider their judgments. Those of course are both extreme examples, but they are just to prove a point that amps CAN make a significant difference. Of course most of us here have gear that falls in between these examples, so it’s harder to determine what makes the most difference in each individual set up, but that’s also what makes all of this fun. I said in my first post that higher priced does NOT always mean higher quality; some seemed to miss that point. It’d be too simple to determine what the best pieces of gear are, and forums like this wouldn’t exist if price always equaled quality. I agree that trying for yourself is the best way to determine if a product is right for you, that’s just about the only piece of advice given on this site that is completely unfaltering.
As far as having a credible reference point to say ANYTHING about this subject (It’s been assumed there was none since I said I have not tried an A500…), I assume many of us here have built our own amplifiers, and I know I have and I’ve rebuilt many a vintage solid state amps. Haven’t you quickly found what components are inside and how much it all costs to make (especially when you build your own amp!); not extreme $ but not minor pocket change either, and I get all my electrical components at cost from a friend who owns an electrical parts store; it still can add up. To sell an amp such as… the A500 is the hot topic so lets stick with it, for $180, after both the reseller (such as parts express) and the manufacturer (Behringer) have made their profits by selling it to us at $180, the cost of manufacture has to be WELL BELOW $100 because of course Parts Express is making more than a mere $40 on it and same goes for Behringer. To have those specs at that price point, I TOTALLY AGREE IS GREAT! However, to think there aren’t numerous compromises made to manufacture such a high-power amplifier for less than $100 cost is ridiculous. Are those compromises significant, as I said before in my first post, it depends on what your application is, what speakers you hook to it as stated above, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, how it sounds to you. If it sounds great to you, great, you’ve found the perfect amp for you; if you need something different, then keep looking; last time any of us checked, weren’t their 1000+ models to choose from? Higher priced amps, SURE their prices are marked up, so is the Behringer A500; not as much as say other amp makers obviously, but Behringer isn’t making this amp for free are they, of course not.
Again, read the posts from
here. That set of posts goes on for pages now.
Lastly, I haven’t gotten 'taken to the cleaners' yet like someone guessed! My reference amp is one that I’ve never mentioned it’s model on a forum, and I won’t. It’s an old ‘Pro’ amp actually they stopped making years ago and it’s getting harder and harder to find, so I’m not about to start advertising it’s glory! I have two; use one in my HT room; rebuilt one back to factory spec, and I want more! Just can’t find them anymore. My other HT amp is a Parasound amp I bought used and got for a small fraction of what it was new, meets factory spec and sonically fits my center channel well. Sure I'd like a McIntosh or Bryston amp that'd last forever like my other one, but upgrade fever isn't quite what it used to be, at least for power amps at the moment! Time fixes that though doesn't it?
Sarius, like I said in my first post, let us know how you like your A500's after you get them broken in, and I hope they work great for you.
This post was a lot longer than I anticipated… HA! Good night!
Brad
