jeffsg4mac

jeffsg4mac

Republican Poster Boy
<font color='#000000'>I have been reading some stuff here and there the last few weeks and now I am wondering a few things. The one thing I read ( The Ten Biggest Lies in Audio) confirmed some things I suspected for a long time and told me a new one or two. Now I have another question. Just how much difference is there in sound quality between amplifier designs, both inexpensive and expensive. I have listened to a lot of amps over the last 15 years in all price ranges. Amps I have owned include, Kenwood, HK, Adcom, NAD, Yamaha, Rotel, and Parasound. I now have a Denon which I am happy with thus far. I did a comparison of my Denon against an adcom GFA 7300 and the Denon really sounded better. The difference was noticeable immediately. The Adcom was about 5 years old, so was I just hearing a new and better design? or was the Adcom just not as good as I first though? Or is the Denon just really that good? Now here is my main question. How much better would a Krell be or some other high end amp be? Is it worth it to spend the extra money, or are the modern HT receivers good enough with a capable set of speakers? I have right now with my current setup the best sounding system I have ever owned. I have built my own speakers in the past using Dynaudio, Vifa, Peerless, and Focal parts and I have owned some good amps. However, my Denon receiver coupled with my monitor series Paradigms sounds well, stunning! I have heard, in the past, about 10 years ago, a Mark Levinson system with a pair of Quads, that at the time I thought was the best sounding system I had ever heard and I have been trying to achieve that type of sound ever since. I now have it at a fraction of the cost. So what happened? did my hearing go suddenly at 38 years old or has technology caught up with what I was trying to achieve? I welcome some feedback cause now I am confused
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gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
<font color='#000000'>Jeff;

You pose some excellent questions, some of which I may include in a forthcoming article about &quot;The Misconceptions in Audio Amplifiers&quot;. &nbsp;More power is not always better as you seemed to have discovered already. &nbsp;In many cases, high power amps can be noisier than carefully designed amps. &nbsp;Thus with a higher noise floor, subtleties get masked. &nbsp;The truth is a majority of todays home theater speakers are very efficient (&gt;90dB SPL@1 meter), and combine that with 5 or 7 speakers in a moderately sized lively living room and you soon realize how little power you actually may need. &nbsp;Certainly having more power is always better, but not at the expense of linearity, noise floor, and fidelity. &nbsp; &nbsp;I too have recently discovered how good a high quality receiver can sound, and in many cases outperform similarly priced separates.

I will expand upon this after CES, but I would like to keep this thread going for the benefit of all audioholics.</font>
 
Rip Van Woofer

Rip Van Woofer

Audioholic General
<font color='#000000'>The only way you can say for certain that amp A sounded better (or even different) than amp B is if you were able to compare them immediately via a switch, and if their levels or loudness (as measured in the room) were identical to within 0.1 dB. Yes, a tenth of a decibel! (Some say 0.15 will do) And if the room and all other system components were identical too, of course.

It has been well known to audio engineers, psychoacousticians, and audiologists for at least thirty years that such small differences in loudness -- even if they are not recognized as such -- will be perceived as differences in quality, with the louder one sounding &quot;better&quot;. I remember learning about the phenomenon (in the dearly departed Stereo Review) in the early '70s.

In addition, our auditory memory is quite short. Unless the comparison is nearly immediate, too many variables involving memory, and other influences, muck things up. For that matter: of all the amps you mentioned, how many of them did you listen to with the same speakers, not to mention during a properly conducted A-B comparison? Or even in the same room, with nothing changed? Speakers and room acoustics are the most variable elements in any audio system. If you didn't control for those variables you're not even comparing apples and oranges anymore -- it's more like apples and pork chops!

Human hearing -- indeed, perception in general -- is fraught with error and subject to all kinds of influences: emotional state, fatigue, subtle or overt psychological maniuplation, etc. People are not only easily fooled by others; we're awfully good at fooling ourselves. This is Psych 101 stuff. It's easy to convince ourselves that the sexy looking Krell just *has* to sound better -- and then, mirabile dictu, it does!

Basically, any two well-designed amps regardless of price (meaning flat frequency response, minimal distortion, high input impedance and low output impedance, and negligable noise) will be audibly identical in controlled listening tests when level matched as described above. Innumberable experiments have confirmed this.

Buying a Krell instead of an Onkyo is done for the same reason one buys a Mercedes instead of a Toyota. Both work equally well as transportation, but you buy the Mercedes if you can afford it for the pride of ownership, the luxury, and (frankly) the snob appeal.</font>
 
gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
<font color='#000000'>Rip;

You have touched upon these topics quite nicely and I wholeheartedly agree with many of the points you have raised. &nbsp;This is why we often frown on doing product comparisions namely with amplifiers because to do them correctly involves too much difficulty in set up, and controlled testing. &nbsp;I am also a big believer in doing controlled instantaneous A/B comparisons to determine if a significant audible difference is present. &nbsp;Memory and perception can often fool one into believing there is a difference when in fact none exists. &nbsp;After all, this is how the exotic cable market flourishes. &nbsp;However, they go one step further and suggest you must break in the cables for 30 days or more, but let's not go down that path.

Cable Break In

Perhaps we can transform the feedback from this forum discussion into an article to be featured on Audioholics. &nbsp;Keep it going! &nbsp;I will be slammed until after CES, but I will try to check in.</font>
 
jeffsg4mac

jeffsg4mac

Republican Poster Boy
<font color='#000000'>I agree with all that, and your are correct in saying that I never really did a fair comparison. Well I did with the Denon and the Adcom but the others were always different setups. So in reality I will never be completly sure which amp was the best. I don't think it mattered anyway because I was always happy at the time. Also I often wondered why a lot, not all but a lot of High End Shops never put the NAD, ADCOMS, and Rotels of world on their best speakers, preamps, and CD players. They were always connected to lesser components. I would have loved to hear my $350 60watt, Adocm GFA-535II compared to a Krell or Levinson just to see if I could hear a difference.</font>
 
Yamahaluver

Yamahaluver

Audioholic General
<font color='#0000FF'>As a student I worked as a manager for a high end NY audio chain and had the oppurtunity to do A/B comparisons with amps of different make, I also had the fringe benefit of taking amps to home and auditioning them thoroughly with speakers of different makes.

Each and every amp has had a different sonic character and to me I would guess it has to do with interaction to the speaker attached. For instance there are some speakers which would make a particular brand sound really bad whereas another pair of speakers would make them sound really good.

A null test would negate this theory but if hearing were to be believing then I would totally disagree with the theory that all amps should ideally sound the same, having said that, there is way more variations in the speaker world than the amp world. I do agree however that paying more and going for the hype, exotic circuitry, special caps, hand picked transistors etc. neccesarily doesnt mean a better product, just inflated ego, snobbery and vanity. Speaker to Amp matching however is a must and speaker to personal taste and perception matching is quintessential for a satisfactory system. In that case, one might like a amp of a high budget or a speaker of a low budget, whatever suits ones ears.

Like marriage, one cant change the system every day and have to learn to compromise and live with its quirks and pluses so a thorough audition is very much neccesary. Sadly in today's high pressure sales tactic world, a good audition is a thing of the past, a good advice is one which fills the salesman's pockets to max.</font>
 
G

Guest

Guest
<font color='#000000'>I have only gotten serious about sound in the last couple of years. I used to think Klipsch was the end-all for high end speakers. Fortunately for me, there is a salesman at the local Magnolia store who has been in the industry for decades &amp; is not really biased. He has never pushed me to go over my budget &amp; has, at times, demoed all the high end stuff in the store for me, realizing the whole time he had little chance of a sale.
&nbsp;Thanks to him &amp; sites like this, I have learned much about primo sound equipment. I now know that what Magnolia offers really just scratches the surface on high-end equipment(Krell,B&amp;K,Martin-Logan,Vienna,Sonus Faber). But it helps to just be able to hear some of whats available to a novice such as myself &amp; be able to decide how to get the most for my money. Unless I win the lottery Ill have to be satified with building my sound a piece at a time modestly, most likely never achieving sound nirvana. But, for me, this is fun.
&nbsp;So far Id have to agree that different amps have a bit different effect when played on the same speakers. Have heard the Krell &amp; B&amp;K played on M-L's &amp; Viennas, and the sound is fairly similar. B&amp;K would be my choice because of price. Same with Yamaha &amp; Denon. In the past I was told that the Denon's have a better power supply. Not sure if that is the case now as comparable units sound quite similar to me. I have gone with Yamaha, spent less, &amp; have been happy. I just upgraded from a rx-v620(5x100) to a rx-v3300(6x130) &amp; there is a definite improvement in the quality of sound. Naturally the 1st thing I would attribute this to is the increase in power, but I can also see the physical difference in the power supplys in the two units. But what I dont know, or don't understand yet, is how much of a role the processor plays in the sound quality difference in these two.
&nbsp;Love this site. Would like to try &amp; help others as much as possible, but I have limited experiences at this point. I appreciate all who post here as I learn something new eveyday. Thanks.

zipper</font>
 
goodman

goodman

Full Audioholic
<font color='#000000'>Like Jeff, I think I now have the best system I've ever had, using a Dernon AVR-5803 with Axiom M60s. &nbsp;I would love to try a Theta Dreadnaught on the pre-outs of the Denon, but I don't know anyone who has one to lend, and I'm not about to spend $6k just to find out. &nbsp;Gene, could you try some high-end amps with your 5803 and see if you can hear a difference?
&nbsp; &nbsp;I wonder why the Denon sounds so good. &nbsp;I think it's the low signal-to-noise ratio - the unit is quiet - &nbsp;and like Gene says, the DACS probably have something to do with it. &nbsp;I am going to try bi-amping it, using the multi-zone 2 amps. &nbsp;I wonder if I'll be able to hear a difference.</font>
 
S

simplman63

Enthusiast
<font color='#000000'>I went from a JVC RX1028V to separate with B&amp;K Ref 50 and a Sherbourn 7/2100. For daily listening, my ears can hear little difference. When critical listening, some very quiet music turned up loud, like very well recorded acoustic guitar, reveals a slight hiss in the background I never had with the JVC reciever. Over all, I believe, if you stay within the paramaters of the amp, avoid any clipping, you are using, you will never have a true difference in sound quality. Speakers make a bigger difference followed by room accoustics and even poorly engineered recordings make a bigger difference in th end result. but, thats just me...

David</font>
 
H

hopjohn

Full Audioholic
<font color='#000000'>Dynamic headroom bears far to little attention in reviews and purchasing decisions among the masses. Amps which have lower headroom cannot in my opinion produce sound as accurately as those with a generous amount of it. During accute transitions in music and movies many amplifiers lack that reserve empph to quickly produce these sound peaks. Having effiecient speakers helps amps with anemic headroom perform more adequately, but this combination is more of a fix than a solution. To me this is where the biggest differences in amp sound lies, and the primary reason why speaker/ amp matching is essential.

This is purely opinion, but I think many of the high high dollar speakers which are often inefficient are so, only because it takes an extremely well designed amp to drive them properly. Coincidence? No one considers that if they are so darn good, that a relatively cheap amp be able to drive them well also.</font>
 
R

rorythedog

Enthusiast
<font color='#000000'>I've had the same problem. I'm 38 now (39 next month, d**n!) and have been chasing the sound I had when I was 20.

At that age, experimentation was rife in many areas, if you get my drift. My system then, (apart from the turntable), was pretty basic - LP12, Mission Cyrus Two and stand-mounted Tannoy E11's. It sounded fantastic, spiritual.

Nowadays my system is far more complex and far more valuable, but, it just doesn't do it! I've tried to figure it out, tried different amps, CD players, speakers and cables. I even tried &quot;white-tack&quot; instead of Blu-Tac, nothing works.

I wouldn't say I'm unhappy with the sound, that would be too strong. I've learnt enough along the way to realise that my gear must sound better, I've made the informed choices. But something's missing.

There are two variables though. Since that LP12 I haven't owned one other turntable, it's been CD all the way. And the other one? Well, let's just say I'm a little bit healthier now.

I think hearing is different from all the other senses. Listen to a piece of music that you really like, something you haven't heard in years, and, at least for me, instant recall. I can, almost always, remember exactly where and when I first heard it. And I remember how it made me feel.The smell of bacon sandwiches - and I'm not knocking it - just doesn't push those buttons.

Listening to Hi-fi is relative. There's no real way of knowing which amp was the best, and to a large extent, it's irrelevant.

What matters is the here &amp; now, and right here, right now I'm listening to a new (to me, anyway) Marantz CD10.

Things are looking up.
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;
</font>
 
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S

simplman63

Enthusiast
<font color='#000000'>I remember the first time I heard the &quot;Bad Company&quot; album. It was very late and we were all feeling very mello after a night of adventure. My friend had a very powerful quadraphonic reciever. Not really high end stuff but the old Klipsh sounded incredible late in the quiet night with the lights turned low. I don't think I have heard it sound so good sense. I am sure of I haven't. Was it the amp? The Klipsh? The LP? The room?... Aahh, brings back memories.
Maybe it was something deeper.</font>
 
zipper

zipper

Full Audioholic
<font color='#000000'>I'm thinking of hooking my old Technics TT back up for some comparison. I remember years ago listening to Zeppelins' 1st album &amp; ,even on very cheap equipment,with headphones,being able to hear Plant wetting his lips to sing on &quot;Babe,I'm gonna leave you&quot;. I have not heard that kind of detail in music for a long time.But I don't have headphones &amp; the days of the $15 Columbian lid are long gone so it may all be relative.
</font>
 
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Rip Van Woofer

Rip Van Woofer

Audioholic General
<font color='#000000'><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">(...)the days of the $15 Columbian lid are long gone</td></tr></table>
Ah, memories! That and the &quot;nickle bag&quot;.

And who'da thunk that Canada would become a major producer?!? Not that I do that anymore, but there was a news item recently that a major growing operation was busted near Barrie, north of Toronto -- it was in a closed-down Molson's brewery!

Oh, yeah, this was about amps....</font>
 
A

av_phile

Senior Audioholic
Just found this interesting thread. Keep up the exchange of ideas guys. Let me post some of mine.

(1) Amplifers ideally should work as a "straight wire with gain." I think this is the highest end in amplifier design. Among different brands that achieve this end with the fewest compromises, they SHOULD sound the same on an instantaneous A/B test. But very few do. There are simply too many variables and design compromises due to production cost contraints, not the least of which is speaker matching, making many consumer products sound less than ideal.

There are many amplifer circuit topologies and designs that by their operation, do impart some sonic character or coloration to the sound they produce, from negligible to considerable. I have come accross amplifiers that exhibit non-linear responses as you go up and down the db ladder. I have come accross amplifiers like the entry level Sherwoods that have severe roll-off characteristic at the extreme ends of the audible spectra. On the other hand, some amps like the Aragon, Krell and Sansui can really go down to DC as verified by my spectral sweep. And they exhibit the most musical and tightest bass notes I've ever heard. And there are some that can generate frequencies only dogs are interested to hear. I have come across amps like the NAD and Carver which retain their non-fatiguing character even at very loud volumes exceeding their clipping points. That's because they use special circuits to effect tube-like soft clipping at high volumes.

Then there are amps that sound anemic and even harsh at low volumes, coming to life only at high volumes. Many powerful professional gears like the Peavey, Hafler and QSC behave this way. I think such amps were really designed to be used at high volumes.

(2) Speakers do affect the final sound you would hear from an amp. I have once thought that speaker types and loads didn't matter. Unitl I came across difficult speaker loads which seemed to prefer one amplifier over another to sound best, while sounding awful or thin in another. Often, the muscle of an amp can dicate the outcome. I've heard some planar speakers like the Magnepan sound anemic on a 100 wpc Marantz receiver which otheriwse sounded gorgeous on a Wharfedale. But the Magnepan's breathtaking brillance came to life with a 200 wpc Bryston and an Aragon.

Then there is this issue of Damping factor in amps that I also didn't consider materially consequential to sonic delivery. But I must confess listening to a Rotel and an Acurus with high damping figures compared to a Onkyo and a Yamaha with much less on the same B&W load convinced me that adequate damping has an effect on the tightness and accuracy of bass notes.

(3) Reproducing adequate SPLs in a room to make convincing soundstage realism require some muscle. While it is possible to extract only a few watts of power to deliver ear-splitting decibels in a small room like in many SET gears, power or the lack of it can spell the difference between constrained and easy listening. An amp with little dynamic headroom can benefit from much continuous power. While an amp with great dynamic headroom can be moderately powered on a continuous basis. I really would have no way of testing this in a showroom except to trust the power ratings on its technical specsheet. I am not aware of any salesman who will allow the custumer to test the maximum abilites of an amp. And that is where my distress comes when specsheets on power rating are less than candid.

Here's where much of the misunderstandings come in the other threads. The quality of the sound form an amp may, on first inspection, have nothing to do with the power ratings on the specsheet. But it does when you start to drive the amp at volume levels you were misled to expect it can handle based on an overstated power specs. Since there is no regulation in this area and with so many standards like DIN, JEITA, FTC, EIA being bandied around as the bases for power rating, power specs are used by manufacturers to tell half-truths that make excellent marketing tools. An amp can be rated as a 30wpc or a 100wpc amp depending on the standards and the measuring condition used. But enough of that.

Often the design of receivers and amps can also be misleading. In many receivers and integrated amps, the volume control circuitry seems to be designed in a way as to bring the amp to full power already at the 10 o'clock position. The better to impress. "hey, if it can sound so loud at that point, imagine what it'd be at max position." All i can say is, it will sound with so much garbage THDs at the max position.

(4) There are amplifiers that behave like constant current sources and thus have difficulty driving low impedances. These amps usually require minimum 8-16 ohm loads, will not allow simultaneos A and B speakers to be driven, unless both are 16 ohms and generally exhibit poor dynamics at high volumes. They may sound gorgeous at moderate volumes, but exhibit severe harshness the louder it gets due to the clipped harmonics its inadeqaute headroom cannot reproduce. Some amps like the Yamahas use a current divding circuitry at the back panel to limit the current going into a 4-ohm load, thus, making the sound appear to be identical between a 4ohm speaker and an 8ohm speaker. They are specified to handle 4 and 8 ohm loads. These amps can really benefit from a high continuous power rating.

Then there are amps that behave as constant voltage sources that exhibit high current capabilities to drive difficult loads down to 1 ohm, but mostly 2 ohms. These amps can sound detailed and full-bodied even at high volumes courtesy of their dynamic headroom and generous power supplies. The two go together. An amp cannot have a good dynamic headroom without prodigious power reserves based on its continuous power rating. And the sound will be dictated accordingly as easy or constrained.

I've heard my old Sansui and Onkyo literally pant for breath on loud passages of most classical pieces if I wanted to bring the quiet passages to my listening levels. Maybe not too obvious with pop and jazz music. But the constraint is audibly evident by the lack of delineation of instruments in a complex orchestral passage and a seeming congestion thereof that makes listening strained and fatiguing. Power is not everything in amps. But it does determine much of the sonic quality when listening at high SPLs - something many audiophiles think are good qualities of an amp, especially when their aim is to reproduce realistic SPLs of the same magnitude one gets in the front seats, much less the podium.

Personally, I look at the following as good attributes of an amp, given a good set of speakers of begin with.

(a) Sufficient power reserves for dynamic headroom, at least 1.5 db from the continuous rated power. That means, a 100watt amp driving an 8-ohm speaker should be able to deliver instantaneous peaks of 150 watts or more at that load. I may not yearn for realistic SPLs, but I sure wouldn't want to miss the dynamics of a piano or a drum when initially struck which can exceed 1.5db in some cases. There is no way to test this at high volumes (see if you can with the salesman over your shoulders.) So only the specsheet will be my basis. The weight of the amp is generally indicative of this. The heftier the better for the same power rating. In addition, I go only for High-current amps. Aragon, Acurus, Bryston, Classe, NAD, Rotel, Harman Kardon, Parasound, Outlaw, Krell, Sunfire, Theta, easily come to mind.

(b) Linearity and extended response. Tranparency is the word used by some. I expect the amp to deliver everything that the source player can deliver as transparently as possible. So if my SACD or DVD-A player can deliver 2Hz up to 88khz, + or - 1db, I expect nothing less from my amp. I don't care if some of the frequencies are inaudible. For sure the harmonics are there and a lively debate is raging as to whether such inaudible harmonics can differentiate a good amp from an exceptional one. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But I wouldn't want to miss it if it did. (Better to err on the side of plenty.) In fact, only an amp with a 2hz-100Khz +0, -0.5db would be a good start for me. And this should be the response at whatever volume setting up to the maximum THD levels of, say 0.09%.

(c) Robust construction simply indicates a responsible and thoughtful design. You can't expect aluminum heatsinks to prosper in a plastic casing. Amplifers anmd speakers are probably the least subject to technological changes. At least not with the same obsolescence as players, preamps and recievers. So I'd expect my investment on an amp to last longer. A robust construction would go a long way to doing that. And may still command some residual resale value after years of service. Talking about robust construction, a lot is said about using 5-way banana terminals over the spring-types for speaker connections. Personally, I prefer the former. I won't eschew the notion that spring-type speaker terminations are a joke, but if they can't accommodate 10 gauge wires, I'd shun away from amps that sport them.
 
H

heroesunplugged

Audioholic Intern
I have an old TEAC AG-V3020 (Pro-Logic) that I have owned since '95. I have auditioned other receivers (Yamaha, Onkyo, Sony, JVC, Pioneer, Sony ES) and they just don't seem to cut it in two-channel mode. The bass response seems to be lacking and in the case of most the mids and highs are overly exagerated (with exception to Pioneer Elite).

Older Onkyo, two-channel stereo and pro-logic receivers are extremely good in my opinion, but agree with some who say that Onkyo has dropped the ball with their current line of HT receivers.

It seems like to get the best of both worlds for home theater and two-channel, you have to spend a fortune to get what most of us are looking for in a receiver. It doesn't make since that most HT receivers don't play basic two-channel audio as well as older two-channel models can, especially when most manufacturers claim that they have discrete amplifiers for each channel and that all channels have the exact same specs.

There is something wrong with an industry that thinks that everybody will want to listen to everything in DPL II/x; or we'll all run out and replace all of our two-channel recordings with a SACD, or DD, when the original was two-channel stereo!

I'm not an audiophile, but do appreciate good sound. And most of the industry is cutting corners to pack more features into a receiver that doesn't always achieve the result most of us are looking for - good sound, regardless of whether it's movies or music for a truely reasonable price. An Elite model Pioneer is not worth twice to three times as much as the standard Pioneer line. In other words, it doesn't cost Pioneer twice to three times as much to make (although most of us are willing to pay the price).
 
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