Are amplifiers worth it - Page 7

i think the benefit of this page would be so that people don't have to go through and read a ton of bs. It feels like gossip girl on avs half the time with all the bickering and nonsense.

I don't see any reason to believe that having a bunch of "engineers" who actually design amps posting here would be any better. If amps all sound different then they'll just bicker about what makes an amp (ie. their own) sound better than the rest. If they all sound the same then they'll just repeat the same marketing BS that keeps them gainfully employed.

Engineers disagree just like everyone else. Probably partly why there are so many amp brands, each group thinking they've got a unique approach to the amp challenge.

No one is going to take your advice, but I do feel badly that you will never hear what $12 plus grand speakers are capable of. Why don't you tell the readers about page 7 of the Diablo user manual? Or how about this quote from page 6:

"Positioning
The loudspeakers have been engineered to deliver the most faithful sound reproduction, whether they are used for music or home
cinema. In order to enhance their performance, to guarantee a high quality of listening, sound image and tone balance, it is important
to note the following basic rules.
The listening area must be located at the summit of an equilateral triangle whose two other points of insertion are determined by
the position of each speaker. Nevertheless it is possible to modify these distances to find an ideal compromise according to the particular
disposition of the room (fig. A).
Each loudspeaker must be placed at the same height and on the same floor plan. The tweeter should be at the same height as
the listener’s ear, when the listener is in their usual listening area (fig. B).
Avoid placing the loudspeakers too close to the room’s corners or walls. This will induce some unwanted room resonance and
artificially increase bass response. On the contrary, if the bass level proves to be insufficient, it is possible to move the speakers closer to
the walls to adjust the bass level (fig. C)."


Honeslty, all anyone must do is place speakers roughly at the thirds and then LISTEN. The difference is shocking and is as obvious as seeing an entry level tv beside a reference.

Again, these are front ported speakers and as ccotenj explained in some detail, the front port prevents them coupling with the room. At no point did I recommend placing them directly against the wall, though they would tolerate that far better than a rear ported design - in this case, too close is likely less than 1 foot from the wall. In fact, the diagrams on page 7 of the manual show two acceptable placements, with one being directly in front of the rear wall.
http://www.focal.com/files/notice-diablo.pdf

All anyone really needs to do is place them at various points and MEASURE. Listening isn't going to get you very far. Given that every room is acoustically different, your blanket statement about placement doesn't show much grasp of how to optimize speakers in specific rooms.

Question for you: Have you ever done any acoustical measurements of your own system and if not, how did you find the best speaker placements? Can you produce something like this to support your claims:


The speakers in this measurement are front ported Focals less than 1 foot from the rear wall due to placement restrictions. I've improved the response since these were taken, but this graph is still pretty close to +-3db from 20-20.
Edited by bfreedma - 11/7/12 at 12:55pm

If you don't want to hear why you paid so much for speakers, then ignore the "rule of thirds" and pair them up with consumer gear throughout the chain. The ONLY way to experience the sound of true hi-end audio is to address the various issues that have a negative impact on AQ.

- Use great gear throughout the chain
- Position speakers and listening position at the thirds (roughly)
- Use an AC conditioner
- Install cylinder bass traps
- Play well mastered CDs (or LPs) and not the loudness war garbage

The experience is amazing for those who care about music.

Back to power amps: there is no question at all whatsoever that solid state power amps at all price points sound different from one another. None. It is not debatable nor worthy of discussion.

Just continue to ignore the evidence and plow ahead - good luck getting the best out of your gear, you're going to need it.

Did you understand the graph I just posted - it doesn't appear you do.

I would gladly follow Ben's "sound" advice due to his actual experience than I would from you. I read a number of your posts in this thread and you do not back up anything you claim. All you seem to be talking about is high-end big money components and how they are needed to attain excellent SQ in ones system. Nothing could be so far from the truth.

How about a little proof to back up your claims. If you are so sure then take the Richard Clark $10K challenge and pocket an easy $10K .

Bill

A foolish statement that only a fool would make.

Did somebody say air conditioning impacts audio quality?

Just getting back to a point made earlier.

There was a time when plenty of Engineers and other such knowledgeable folk were posting (you'd probably have to dig up the AVS forum archives to access their posts).

Unfortunately, that doesn't stop know-it-alls from driving them away. It was actually ridiculous (and somewhat frustrating) seeing people who have no technical background argue incessantly with engineers about how megabuck power chords improve sound quality and how megabuck amplifiers make the sound sooo much better even at lower listening levels. There were even plenty of folk who would argue that even their non audiophile girlfriend could detect the differences between 96khz and 48khz recordings played back from a car stereo. Or how about better network cables are required to ensure that photos you download from the internet are as high quality as possible and not blurry etc.

When it comes to matters like this, there are plenty of close minded and loud mouthed individuals who will furiously defend their beliefs when facts are presented that do not coincide with what they perceive to be the truth.

The fact of the matter is, the brain is a funny thing (very complex) and it is capable of manufacturing all sorts of things. Moving outside of audio, everyone sees colours differently, of this there is no dispute. Our eyes simply collect samples of light intensity and our brains interpret that into an image. This is why we need instruments to properly calibrate our displays, because our eyes are a very unreliable tools and our brains are very capable of adjusting. e.g. use a screen that is overly warm for a period of time and it will look normal, then switch to a monitor that is properly calibrated and it will appear too cool, until you spend long enough and adjust to this new normal.

With audio, simply having someone walk through the room will change the sound, simply shifting your head can change the sound, adding furniture can change the sound, drinking the water in your cup will change the sound... it's simply a matter of an individuals ability to detect these changes as every change in your environment and listening position will change how the sound gets to your ears.

Just getting back to a point I made earlier. The difference in sibilance that I can hear in one of my amps has nothing to do with cords, head movement, people movement, cup movement or continually swallowing. Same room, same equipment, same tracks and same measured volume level. One amp has sibilance, one does not. It's simple, repeatable, and plain to hear. Again, it might be the way the speaker load affects the one amp. Others have commented in the Emotiva forum on how some of their components seem brighter than their old gear, and some with their gear have no problem.

Absolutely... and if you have it and didn't buy the Focal's with the AC designation, you are a "fool".... and are not hearing things the way the engineer intended... lol

Thanks HDKHANG

As I responded earlier, unless you know exactly why the difference exists then it could be for any number of reasons. An industry expert has already commented on this thread that Amplifiers are not TONE controls. I would wager that measurement of your amps would result in a difference being revealed if indeed as you say sibilance is at play. It could very well be a faulty amp who knows (definitely not you or I).

is it worth it to be in a tube full of juice going round and around rapidly swimming with pharoah mummies.?

watching their energy leave their body from side to side as graphed into math.

your mind is knot your own.

do you know what 'roma' is when people are laying around without time?
and then stand up to massaging electricity into the body so it can stack up as charged .
and then stand up to get the whole group to move?

laying on that glossy floor .. those women will sweep you away .

Dude, you gotta tell us where you get your drugs from.

Why the difference between 2 amps exists? So we all have to be electronic engineers of some kind and understand the electron flow from input to output or else we are not allowed to deduce anything? I guess it comes down to me being unaware that one or both of my amps, or my Oppo 95, or any of my cables, speakers or electircal service is affecting the sound of one amp only. I, having carefully tested, played and analyzed my system, know what it is. Believe whatever makes you comfortable.

If you do espresso the prosumer way here
is the covnersion table:

receiver = superautomatic

separates = semiautomatic

separates with 50lb/channel = lever

Nuf said:)

Not at all, you can present "your experiences" as fact, you can express them as a data point. What you can't do is deduce from your limited test sample that what you experienced is proof of something in general. Reason being that you cannot control all the variables needed for a fair comparison. Electronics are not fool proof, they are prone to failure and manufacturing defects or variances. The statement you are trying to disprove with your anecdotal evidence is not that "All amps sound the same no matter what", but that Amplification is a simple and well understood job and provided there is nothing faulty or suspicious about two amplifiers under comparison, they should sound the same within a comfort zone that encompasses both. e.g. it is not fair to compare a 10 watt amp to a 1000 watt amp when requiring a 1000 watt load.

A long while back there was discussion started by someone who had decided to switch from an expensive cd player music playback system to one that was PC based so as to have all his music readily available without the hassle of switching discs or making compilations etc. For a good portion of the thread he claimed that he could hear the difference between a lossless format (I believe it was WMA lossless) and WAV and concluded that WAV was superior. Many people chimed in to point out that all things equal, lossless is lossless and that there should be no differences, and if there was, then something went wrong. He continued to argue stating that he hears what he hears and so therefore lossless is not lossless. After a while, he discovered that his ripping process introduced a form of gain modification to produce a more uniform volume across different albums and that resulted in the changes he had heard. So after disabling this setting in his encoder of choice and having a listen again, he finally agreed that lossless is indeed lossless.

You yourself stated that some Emotiva owners hear the sibilance and others do not. Does that not tell you that there may be some manufacturing tolerances at play?

Not sure how to go about saying my thought but here goes. Electricity, it is for powing the speaker. It has no sound to it at all right? I understand that tube amps use distortion to get a change in sound but do solid state transistors have this effect? If not, how does electricity change sound? Isn't that for the speaker to do?

Now THAT is FUNNY

We have some new engineering terminology to think through..........I can say it because I are one !!

Without electricity there would not be sound in speakers. Therefore, we must control the electricity that is producing the sound.
This can be accomplished with expensive power cords that change the last 2 or 3 feet of electrical characteristics prior to it entering your amplifier. These PC's vary by manufacturer so you may need to order one from each to find one that produces the results that you are seeking.
Be sure they have a liberal return policy and that you have a 5 figure available credit line on your credit card.

You say that I can't use anecdotal evidence of my experience to suggest that if 2 amps can sound different, then it may be possible that all amps do not sound the same. Then you use anecdotal evidence of this fellow ripping music to prove your point. Sorry if I remain unconvinced.

The suggestion here is that there are possibly miles of cabling between your amp and the utility power source, so how can a power cord change make any difference, and I agree with that. But the thing is, it's not the miles and miles of cable that counts, it's only the cable between your house and the transformer that feeds it. I think of it this way, I am connecting my equipment up to a power grid. Is is possible that this power grid is giving me noisy power(factoriesor plants can introduce this with large motors or machinery) or power dips/surges. Then there might be issues with fridges etc in your home. A 5 foot power cord can't correct any of this.

WHAT!!! no way, no electricity, no sound...geesh.

Please don't let his sarcasm deter anyone from answering my question

How many times has your question been answered at AVS? It has simply been asked differently.

i couldn't tell you how many times. However, when i ask a question, i try to simplify as much as i can. Not for me but for others. Maybe i am helping someone out. Please don't tell me i am wrong for doing so.

I always thought that speakers were (by far) the most important component in a system and when you want to upgrade, you should upgrade the speakers first. An upgraded speaker system will yield the biggest improvement in sound quality possible.

Of course, you will reach a point where you need to change the receiver or the amplifier. I would guess the need for gobs of power would derive from buying a speaker that is particularly inefficient (and many high end speakers are). IIRC, it is Klipsch speakers that are particularly efficient but tend to be absolutely HUGE! , however, the cabinet size is one reason they are as efficient as they are.

One reason to buy a component amplifier instead of a receiver is so you can change your preamplifier and processors (keeping up with the latest technology) without changing everything else in the system. The main benefits of a receiver is the manufacturers are able to offer a single, stand-alone electronic unit that is inexpensive, compact and does everything you need done and doesn't have any interface issues. Such designs are inherently compromised but the benefits come at a lower cost which most people demand.

Upgrade your speakers first.

while i strongly agree with the "speakers first" philosophy, there is nothing "inherently compromised" with a single box solution...