Can anyone explain how diff amps give diff soundstage and stronger bass/treble? - Page 2

Nice discussion. It confirms my assessment of Stereophile many years ago when a reviewer waxed poetic about the sonic qualities of a power cable. I let my subscription lapse.

It also reinforces my impression that the new Bryston 4B SST2 I bought sounds no different from my old Adcom GFA 555 MK II. No buyers remorse, though, the Bryston looks way better and is a lot heavier. Build quality, a great warrantee and cosmetics are worth something, right?

A friend of mine recently dropped $13K on an Audio Research preamp, and is going to Atlanta this weekend to listen to amps. He will be listening to Audio Research, Ayre, and Acoustix, with a budget not to exceed $20K. Ugh.

I'm running marine grade wire for speaker cables, and will be buying cheap ICs for my home theater. Can't go wrong.

Generaly speaking....I had Harman Kardon amp. 2 x 100w with tremendous bass and then Marantz PM8000 with similar output power with very poor & thin bass...both conected with the same boxes...my question was...what makes one amp. sound so mighty in bass and the other with similar output power ,so poor ...is it power supply?...here I red it is not...ok...however I would like to know

This is my experience 2 but Arnyk gave one interesting explanation that sounds very logical as well...anyhow...I have now Jaqin tube amp MS-20L
and this monster is driving Magnat Sigma 1000 with easy...and yet this amp has only 50 w per chenell and the boxes are 2 big towers (1.2 m high ),40 kg each,88 db/m with 4 loudspeakers in each....I was told to forget MS-20L as a right amp. for them and now I am more then happy

Somewhere I've read a descriptions of brytson's build and acceptance test proceedure that they carry out on each unit. It is almost as rigorous as what is done in aerospace. I don't remember all the details, but something like a clipping sine wave for an hour alternated by an hour of the unit cooling off and repeating the cycle for 24 hours. Thermal cycles is a very good way to screen for poor electrical connections that could fail although in aerospace its usually done in a vaccum chamber. The care and checkout alone with the accompanying warranty almost makes it worth the price of admission. (20 years analog, 5 digital) You probably won't find many Brystons that suffer from infant mortality.

I have no doubt that Bryston's testing program and build quality are top notch. The owners manual includes a print out for each particular unit. Mine tested at 330WPC with ridiculously low THD, etc. The MSRP is $5000, I paid $4400 from a local dealer. I could have achieved the same sound with a less expensive amp, or paid for more without any increase in sound quality.

It was a bit of an extravagance, no doubt. But since it will be sitting on a pedestal between the front speakers, I wanted something that looks great, if understated, but also is recognized as a long term, high quality piece of gear.

I looked at Plinius the other day, and it's a beautiful amp. Can't justify 3X the price of the Bryston, though. I'll hand it down to my kids, as I did my New Large Advents. I still have some original Large Advents, but no place to put them.

Regarding the discussion at hand, the amount of subjective BS written about sonic differences in preamps, wires, amps, etc, is astounding, even nauseating. I'd like to see these "Golden Ear" experts post up their audiograms.

That's not going to happen. Audiograms are anathema to them. What you hear is all that matters. (With no way to know if it's linear and what the producer intended or highly distorted and not.) *sigh*

I agree 100%...the only judge are your ears

Actually, for most of us the brain is also significantly involved.

...by which hangs a story... ;-)

Many stories, Arny. I wonder how much money changed hands, as in gear purchases, advertising revenue, and free gear to "reviewers", because of the Recommended Components list in Stereophile.

The null hypothesis is that decent amps, preamps and wire are so flat that they rarely matter. Any significant audible differences mean something's seriously wrong with said gear. Remember that "High Fidelity" means TDH< 0.1%, levels below that are indistinguishable. I know that bench measurements are far more sensitive than my 60-year-old ears. As I said, I'd like to see the audiograms of these reviewers performed by a certified audiologist. I'll bet most have significant hearing loss, presbycusis, etc.

I'm sure that no checks cleared any reviewer's bank, as they have a lot to lose in various other forms. Reality may be denominated in equipment loans, aggressively discounted prices, etc. Even reviewers who don't have their hands out may end up with equipment that the manufacturer doesn't want to pay to have returned.

I think the advertising revenue reaped by Sterophile as a result of their list was huge. Also, just think about how that list impacted buying decisions. The financial impact of their subjective evaluations was, and may still be, significant. The direct benefit to reviewers was probably small by comparison.

..Sadly, it will never happen. Neither the reviewers nor subscribers have any real interest in knowing the dirty little secret of this hobby: ..That modern day electronics sound pretty much the same.

Even though employing honesty-controls would benefit their wallet, (most) audiophiles simply aren't interested in having their connoisseurship debunked.

Ever try getting a wine snob to do some blind testing (to correlate taste w/ cost, for example)? ..You'll get the same sorry excuses about why such an exercise proves nothing.

Any dealer can tell you stories about people who came into the shop asking about specific components listed on the RCL. And it's pretty obvious that it's the subjective review, not Atkinson's measurements, that determine your place on that list. (BTW, the list is nonselective. Every component reviewed, and almost every component mentioned, makes it.)


I think this issue is overrated. Stereophile at least has a reasonable policy restricting what reviewers can accept. But all of those reviewers drank the Kool-Aid long before any manufacturer offered them a courtesy price. You don't have to buy them when they're already in your pocket.

I think Stereophile has done a real disservice to it's subscribers and manufacturers. Clearly, many people bought recommended components because of reviews that talked about "bass slam", or "speed", or "rhythmic pace". Got news for the writers; amps share the exact same speed, 186,000 miles per second.

A friend of mine just dropped $12K on an Ayre 200WPC amp, which will complement his $13K Acoustic Research Reference 5. I haven't checked, but I'll bet they're both on the RCL. I'd like to do blinded testing vs a consumer grade receiver.

What about manufacturers that didn't play the RCL game, but built quality products at realistic prices? My impression is that Stereophile has lost credibility, not to mention readership. Is there any mainstream magazine that does honest, comprehensive reviews?

A year or so ago they crowned the Peachtree Nova the component of the year EVEN THOUGH John Atkinson never got around to bench-testing it (despite claiming it was in the cue for testing)! ..Though I owned a Nova and liked it a lot, it really bothered me it appeared on the RCL without first having the manufacturers claims for THD, power output, S/N ration, etc... validated. .It seems wrong that some gear misses the RCL (not that there's much of that!) or is given a lower placement b/c of mediocre test results while other gear (the Nova) isn't even tested before being added to the RCL.

One way to interpret Stereophile's adulation without adequate testing is that they believe that all good equipment sounds the same. ;-)

In all seriousness, the actual tendency toward sameness of modern audio gear allows SP and the other high end ragazines to get away with a lot of shall we say imprecision in what they do. The chances that someone is going to buy a component on the SP RCL and have it actually sound bad (or even all that different) is very low. After all, it all (at least the stuff that is reasonably good) pretty much sounds the same.

I can't beleive anyone who ask this type of questions here.Their are no memebers here even educated enough or qualified to even know.The big boys like John Curl'
Bob Carver'ect know.But these guys have a career at this unlike the people here who think they know something and have never even design a amp.What a sad group.

You don't need to have ever designed an amp like John Curl or Bob Carver to know the basics of validity testing. ..My wife oversees FDA testing for a pharma company; she's not a chemical engineer, but she knows a lot about blinded trials.

My hunch is that Bob Carver and John Curl love engineering cleaner more streamlined circuits, etc... while all the while knowing quite well that they do little, if anything, to improve how their gear sounds.

Ever notice that NOT ONE amp manufacturer has EVER run an ad that mentioned how a group of "blinded" audiophiles preferred their gear to a competitors?

I think not...even if sometimes rewiews are objective...much more times they get nice money to write positive tests...so in fact you never know what is going on...the only exit is..listen,compare,listen,compare...and..if possible not to fall on great performance or fantastic look...or..what is the worst - how many kg has a machine...my friend bought a CD player just because it was bluddy heavy...more then 15 kg...the mind can play mad and bad

How do you know that is true? Did you check out the credentials of every poster?


They have vested interests.

Let me put it this way. If John Curl is afraid enough of what I know to publicly libel me, what does that say about what I know? ;-)


Again, how do you know that this is true?

Are you unaware of the participation of people who have designed some of the most successful products in the industry at AVS?

Besides, does one need to design amps for a living to judge amps? If so, that disqualifies virtually every audio journalist alive today.

And, it makes me, who actually has designed some power amps, king of the hill. ;-)

I say the thinking shown above is flawed. I already see a number of other good rebuttals.

On balance, one amplifier manufacturer developed his own ABX box, built something like 100 of them, and sold some and and loaned some to their dealers.

http://home.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_qsc.htm

Maybe Heathkit will come out with monoblock kits:

http://www.heathkit.com/index.php?op...124&Itemid=238

Those were simpler times.

My Bryston was only $88/lb, not bad for a high end product. An Oppo 95 is about the same. I have a $10 rule for wine, maybe a $90/ rule for electronics makes sense. How much are speakers worth on a per pound basis? Don't laugh, Stereophile's reviews are no more logical...

Is there actually an amplifier's weight/price index?

In any case, my amp has a much better index than yours Jon. It is just 59 dollars per pound

On second thought, perhaps my amp is not a HiEnd amp and I'd better start looking for something about 200 dollars per pound

Yep, Jorge, I overpaid for my amp. It's a bit embarrassing, but I rationalized it on the basis of how it will look on a pedestal between the front speakers.

I'm quite sure your amp sounds just like mine, though it could maybe open up the upper mids a bit more.

Of course, you could raise your index a bit with a nice power cord. From the RCL:

JPS Labs Aluminata AC Cable: $3499

The Aluminata AC has three 8-gauge Kapton-insulated conductors and uses a Wattgate plug and IEC connector, both with gold-plated contacts. Along with the matching interconnects and speaker cables, the Aluminatas "brought a new measure of spaciousness, scale, smoothness, heretofore unimagined detail, and overall musical ease and naturalness to my music system," AD enthused. KR agrees with AD that the expensive Aluminata lowers his system's noise floor. (Vol.30 No.4 Review; also see CS's VTL review in Vol.25 No.11)

With my McIntosh MA6600 Integrated, I'm right there with you at $87/lb, though that covers both amp and pre-amp But like you, I justify it on the basis of appearance, and build quality. I also love the fact that it has tone controls, a balance control, and a mono switch. But I don't kid myself about it sounding better than the NAD, Peachtree, or Bryston gear that preceded it in my system - because it doesn't.

As for that JPS Aluminata Cable, I'd be open to the possibility it makes some minuscule improvement in sound provided it was used the entire distance b/w my component and the power plant 60 miles away. ..But using it for the final 3ft b/w my wall and amp? ..No way.

There's also a power conditioner on the RCL for $27,000. Don't know how much it weighs....

Evidently, so are non-sighted test.

Any test can be designed incorrectly. One has a better chance of mapping out a SBT style protocol than sighted however.

Elimination of possible sources of BIAS being a major step.

I wonder if he could stone cold walk in and tell me which amp is a Parasound Halo A21 and Crown XLS 1500 DriveCore with a towel over the equipment rack.

Just set unity gain. Say 80dB at the listening position and straight out 16 flips of the coin say which is which.

Which one do you think is better?

I think all methods (of both sighted and un-sighted) have merit.

One shouldn't depend on any one test or source, when judging audio equipment for themselves.