mtrycrafts,
I apologize in advance for the length of this post.
I'm going to listen very carefully to your reply to this particular post, in an effort to try to understand where you are coming from. Please do answer this one question I pose at the end of this post.
I can understand you reluctance to take my statements that I can indeed hear audible differences between various amp designs and brands. I know that to you these differences are caused by my beliefs and expectations about a particular brand, and my emotional state at the time of listening. So, I’m going to describe a situation that occurred to me…
I visited a Magnolia Hi-Fi and was primarily looking for a set of speakers. I listened to several models in the store and was drawn to a pair of Vienna Acoustics Beethoven’s. The system connected to the Beethoven’s consisted of a Krell KPS CD player, a Krell Home Theater Standard pre-pro, and a Krell FPB 200 amp, all connected up with Audioquest IC’s and speaker cables. Sitting on the other side of the low equipment rack was a B&K amp and preamp, with a Toshiba CD player for a source. These components were connected to a second pair of speakers, the Vienna Acoustics Mozart’s, but were off, as I’d come in shortly after opening.
As the salesman knew me from previous visits he closed the doors to the listening room and carefully verified the setup: exact location of speakers and their toe-in matched the markings on the floor, no surround modes or EQ enabled on the pre-pro, set to simple stereo and “pure-direct” mode, and no crossover or sub used.
After listening to several cuts off of the CD’s I happened to have with me that day, I was very impressed with the combination. Tight, extended, tuneful bass, clear and musical mids, and detailed highs without going overboard into sizzle that will cause listener fatigue. I remember listening to cuts from the Holly Cole Trio album “Blame it on my Youth”, and several songs from Eric Clapton’s Unplugged album, and a couple of cuts off of Robert Cray’s “I was Warned” album. I was really pleased with the sound and thinking that maybe I’d found a pair of speakers that I could live with. I went home to get some additional CD’s and headed back to listen further.
When I got back less than two hours later my usual sales consultant was gone for lunch, and another sales person took me back into the listening room. Everything appeared to be exactly as I had seen it earlier in the day. He cued up my first CD – “Steady On” by Shawn Colvin – and I sat back to listen. After a minute or two I asked to have him play a different cut. Although the sales person had been smiling and tapping his foot, something just didn’t seem right to me. The second cut was also disappointing. As I was listening to a different CD, I figured maybe the mix was a little muddied and I’d just never really noticed before... although up until then I’d loved this album and thought the production was top notch. We put on a different CD – “Be Yourself Tonight” by the Eurythmics. Again, after several minutes I just wasn’t feeling it like I had earlier.
At that point I asked him to throw on Eric Clapton’s Unplugged, which I had listened to earlier and loved. That too proved ultimately to be a letdown. The bass was not as extended, and what was there was bloated and slow… not the tight, tuneful, sound I recalled. In addition, the upper mids and highs seemed to have lost a bit of detail and glow. I asked the salesperson to check to see if a surround mode had been turned on, or if any EQ settings had been added or adjusted. After a quick check all was as it should have been, and was earlier. I even walked over to the Beethoven speakers to ensure they were on and playing and someone hadn’t switched the speaker leads over to the smaller Mozart’s.
At that point I was at a total loss. I had walked in expecting to be further dazzled by the system that had thrilled me just two hours previous. I was looking at the same big ‘bad boy’ Krell amp, and the same Home Theater Standard pre-pro, and the same Krell KPS CD player, and the same Vienna Acoustics Beethoven speakers… all of which I was admittedly taken with. What was wrong? Suddenly the system I'd been very impressed with earlier in the day just wasn't doing it for me!
The room was the same, the speakers were the same and in the same place, the source and preamp were the same, the IC's and cables were the same... and I thought that the amp was the same. I had no doubt in my mind that I was listening to the same equipment, but something was indeed wrong with how it sounded. Not terribly wrong as in “yuck”! Just a little bit different. A little less musical; a little “fatter” and slow. A little less transparent. Not tons… but enough to notice.
As I was sitting there trying to understand what was happening, and why I was having such a different reaction to what I believed to be the exact same system, the sales person was checking the connections to all of the equipment. Suddenly he said “Hmmm, that’s strange.” When I asked what he meant he indicated that someone had run the output of the Krell HTS pre-pro into the B&K amp, and connected the Beethoven speakers to the B&K as well. Everything in the system was the same as before… except the amp!
Now you can’t say that I came in expecting to hear something different. You can't say that I believed that I would hear anything different. And you can’t say I was swayed by the look or sex appeal or name of the amp, ‘cause I didn’t know it had changed. You can’t say I that my emotions were the cause of hearing something different, ‘cause I was “in the groove” on both occasions and believed that I would be similarly impressed. And you can’t say that the sales person somehow consciously or sub-consciously influenced me, ‘cause he didn’t know there had been a change either.
So how do I explain this other than to believe that I could/can indeed discern an audible difference?
I am interested in your explanation… so please do enlighten me.
