Will an external amp boost just volume, or improve overall sound quality?

[eirepaul]

highfihoney:

I just stumbled across this thread after not being around for a while. I haven't looked back at the posts here, but you are wasting your time with Mytrycrafts - he doesn't appear to have anything else to do.

 

[mtrycrafts]

i'd be mad if i could hear what you said

the thing about imagination is that its never as good as the real thing.

On the contrary, imagination is everything to many audiophiles.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I agree, especially since it was hignfihoney that started the thread "whats your idea of loud music." I'm all for saving my one set of ears...as I can appreciate imaging, spacialization, and the nuances of sound at lower and lower decibels as I mature, and most probably in the interest of "saving my drums."

But the real reason I posted was I think you're doing a disservice to highfihoney: "his huge amps." In retrospect, you may be more politically correct in your mis-engenderization of her, as I am sure the ACLU would be all over a post of "[B]her[/B] huge amps." There's a mental image a Buddhist monk would be hard-pressed to quell.

Anyhow, no offense to anyone...that's another politically incorrect statement. How can you possibly offend anyone by charcterizing him/her as feminine. Just an aside...Monday morning humor and quipping.

Didn't he mention 1500 watt amps? Those are huge and even in the avatars they are huge.

 

[mtrycrafts]

This whole argument is ridiculous. The thought that you only need a couple of watts to maintain a sane listening level is stupid. Most music has a tremendous amount of dynamic range. To get the transient peaks, you need that extra power in your back pocket. If you have ever done serious listening, you will know that 10 watts is not enough. Heck with today’s receivers, if you are listening at 10 watts, you barely have 10dB of headroom. This is not enough in my opinion. My 2500 will not drive my XR16’s. It doesn’t have the constitution for it. If I want to sit and listen to background music then it works fine. But to serious listening, I need more headroom. The sound from the 2500 is thin and compressed, I can hear it clip. When I use my Proton with it, the soundstage opens up, and the music is more detailed and accurate. This is because the proton has the headroom to drive my speakers, whereas the Yamaha does not. Guys like ht addict crack me up. You say power is nothing, yet you have a flagship receiver that essentially has 7 separate power amps in it, and you have your mains bi-amped! If you are going to preach, at least practice it.

Ridiculous? Who is talking about not needing power in a dynamic peak, especially at low frequencies. No one has stated 10 watts is all you need for the peaks. On the contrary, what is being stated is that 10 watts is what seems to be the constant output before the dynamic peaks show up. That is what is being challenged.

 

[mtrycrafts]

The pop music I've digitally extracted only usually has around 6-8 dB of dynamic range (average volume to peak volume). Classical music can have more than this.



90 dB in the home is meant to be very very loud. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a 100 watt amp driving reasonably efficient speakers can manage this. This probably is meant for when you are sitting a reasonable distance from the speakers.

Dolby recommend to music mixing studios 3 dB of amp headroom:

www.dolby.com/assets/pdf/tech_library/4_Multichannel_Music_Mixing.pdf



According to Rane, the audibility of clipping is less than is commonly thought. This is because the bass component usually clips before the higher frequencies.

http://www.rane.com/note128.html



This may indicate that the treble component is clipping with one amplifier.

You have been doing a lot of reading, I see, from many of your recent posts. Great

Yes, 90 dB continuous output is rather loud, loud, loud.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I typically sit at least 6m away from my 2 ch setup.
.

So, you are trying to energize an auditorium? No wonder you need more power. I doubt that is typical in a home, 20 ft listening distances.
Don't think that is a fair comparison to normal conditions.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I made these measurements using the statistical analysis on Cool Edit. As these data are in the digital domain, they are likely to be highly accurate..

With that setup, you may want to check out that CD he is talking about. I am very skeptical of his claim of 90dB dynamic range. That number would be all over the internet chat rooms. Never heard about it.

 

[mulester7]

Actually I believe Peng did his listening from the sweet spot, listening to both speakers hooked either to an amp or receiver. If you had done this instead off infront of one speaker hooked to a receiver then another 15ft apart hooked to an amp then I wouldn't have had a problem.

.....no, I think you're going to always have a problem with dedicated amps considering you presently own a receiver....HT, when you stand right in front of a front-firing speaker and cup your ears with your hands, does a first bounce from the front-firing speaker cones happen except on your hands?....no....are you standing in the path of directly radiating cones whose efforts haven't hit a wall or floor or ceiling yet....yes....so tell me, how does your claim of room acoustics botched the hearing have any merit?....to me, the falacy is obvious of AB tests with B following A by sometimes minutes....unless a difference is outright radical, you have little or no reference after even a few seconds, much less a few minutes....this is the horsecrap ploy I firmly believe guys have used to get published, hitting a big lick for a great deal of this most-questionable and actually worthless google-science....I want to compare the two pieces of equipment going at the same time, walking back and forth, running the source back a few seconds to a critical spot, over and over, cupping my ears, with my eyes shut....if there's ANY difference to be heard, you'll hear it, I've done this over and over, and was in an attitude of not giving a crap how either sounded up front, which I don't think you are, HT....to come back with an argument is futile, bud, we're a'takin' this here fort.....

 

[Buckle-meister]

...the upper model b&w's are efficient & will play very loud easily BUT they are very revealing,more so than most speakers ive used & might be part of why i didnt care for the sound.

You don't want speakers that reveal as much detail as possible?

 

[MacManNM]

Ridiculous? Who is talking about not needing power in a dynamic peak, especially at low frequencies. No one has stated 10 watts is all you need for the peaks. On the contrary, what is being stated is that 10 watts is what seems to be the constant output before the dynamic peaks show up. That is what is being challenged.

Mrty, enough already. You've posted your opinion over and over, and everyone knows it. Your arrogant condescending attitude is annoying and not appreciated. Live and let live. You’ve stated your case, now leave.

Do a little research on Telarc recordings, you'll find that 90db of dynamic range is nothing unusual. Several of their newer recordings have 110dB or more of DR.

 

[MacManNM]

You don't want speakers that reveal as much detail as possible?

The more detailed the speakers, the easier it is to hear flaws in your system and in the recording. Which can be quite irritating.

 

[tbewick]

hi tbewic, im not singeling you out but being that b&w is being used by a few as an information reference i wanted to point out something about b&w speakers being ran with different amps that i found out from running them, the upper model b&w's are efficient & will play very loud easily BUT they are very revealing,more so than most speakers ive used & might be part of why i didnt care for the sound.

I probably should have said 'compared to my Tannoys, B&W are less efficient'. The tweeter in the Tannoy dual-concentric driver is horn-loaded into the bass driver, which improves efficiency.

wattage,spl's,subwoofers,room conditions & all other stuff aside i noticed huge differences in the sound at all levels with 2 different amps,i did not level match anything nor did i dbt anything but i know that i much prefered a 150 wpc krell class a amp with them over my "gigantic amps",the krell had deeper,cleaner & stronger bass & it also made the mids stand out more.

some can argue that i was under a placebo effect or that my protocol was bad or that the test wasn't fair because i used 1 class a amp & 1 class a/b amp but in the end i walked away knowing that the krell made them sound much better.

I'm not disputing what you heard, but I think that it is helpful to have test data to back this up. I've included an example of test data that I have found useful, as this directly shows differences in loudspeaker performance (Ref: Hi-Fi Sound, R. Driscoll, 1980 Hamlyn). If I were to see such test data comparing a 1 kW Krell and my 90 watt Denon, then this would be very useful. It would show - entirely unambiguously - whether or not the amplifier's were performing differently or not with a real speaker load. The fact that the author of this book presents data of this sort (not double blind tests, but physical test data) but only does so for loudspeakers, would lead me to believe that a test would not show a difference (at normal listening volumes). The author, Dr Roger Driscoll, who was a university lecturer in acoustics, clearly states that the amplifier is the strongest system component. This is because it is wholly electronic, unlike a speaker, which is a transducer.

There are types of distortion which an amplifier may introduce, like crossover distortion -

'Not all aspects of sound quality are directly described in written specifications. Total harmonic distortion (THD) is often quoted, but this must be read with care. Some harmonics are more offensive to the ear than others and an overall figure can hide the effects of small amounts of higher harmonics that are readily discernible. It is surprising in this day and age how much crossover distortion is still to be found in amplifiers, even some very expensive ones. Its presence can add a harshness to the sound, although this is sometimes interpreted as a more clinical or analytical sound.'

- http://www.bwspeakers.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/local.faq/ObjectID/F5CA2628-3D20-11D4-A67F00D0B7473B37

and the book I referred to does say pretty much the same thing with regard to THD and other forms of distortion - 'it is difficult to quote an acceptable level for distortion as some types are far more disturbing to the ear than others'. You would hope though that most amplifiers are well enough designed to produce very little distortion, with the result being that the distortion introduced by the loudspeaker is totally dominant. With all due respect to B&W, it is in their interests to keep you in the dark over how 'bad' tranducers like speakers are.

 

[Buckle-meister]

The more detailed the speakers, the easier it is to hear flaws in your system and in the recording. Which can be quite irritating.

I agree, but I'd still rather have speakers that revealed too much than too little. When you do hear something that's recorded well, it's worth having put up with recordings that aren't.

 

[MacManNM]

I agree, but I'd still rather have speakers that revealed too much than too little. When you do hear something that's recorded well, it's worth having put up with recordings that aren't.

True until you have an annoying buzz in your preamp, or your amp has an impedance matching problem with the speakers, this is when the speakers will show the limitations of the rest of your system!

 

[highfihoney]

You don't want speakers that reveal as much detail as possible?

hi buckle,its not that i dont want revealing speakers but with the b&w's the sound was drasticly oposed to my tastes in how a speaker should sound,i prefer speakers that excell in dynamic sound,a sound that i can feel as well as hear,the b&w's lacked the impact that i enjoy most of all & caused me to focus more on the sound of the speaker instead of enjoying the music.

the way they sounded to me was that the sound was more focused & concentrated twords the midrange then the highs with bass being the least emphasized of all.

 

[skmp123]

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