Quote:
Originally Posted by commsysman /t/1420096/help-need-advice-on-new-system#post_22217967
I recommend that you get a good integrated amplifier and a pair of high-quality full-range speakers. That will give you the best musical experience for the amount of money you have.
Most of the money that goes into an HT receiver is spent on "bells and whistles", NOT the amplifier circuits. A typical $1000 HT receiver has amplifier circuits that do not sound as good as a good $400 integrated amplifier. Your current receiver has amplifiers that probably cost about $20 each...if that...and sound like it. Buy an amplifier; NOT a receiver.
I see many claims with no visible reliable support.
(1) An implicit claim that integrated amplifiers are "mustical" and receivers are not.
(2) A claim that "Most of the money that goes into an HT receiver is spent on "bells and whistles", NOT the amplifier circuits."
(3) A claim that "A typical $1000 HT receiver has amplifier circuits that do not sound as good as a good $400 integrated amplifier."
(4) A claim that an amplifier with a parts value of $20 will sound cheap.
These claims, if there was any reliable support for them, would make a very compelling argument. However, compelling arguments without adequate support are meaningless.
Claims like these might be supported by photographs of the insides of equipment, schematic diagrams with technical analysis, bench tests, or reliable listening tests. Where might these be found?
What I do know is that I recently posted photographs of "Audiophile approved" and "Audiophile despised" equipment and asked for people to give their opinions of their apparent build quality, without them knowing the identity of the equipment. I don't recall that any of the "integrated amplifier uber alles" proponents around here were willing to even honor the question with any response. That shows to me, a pronounced lack of conviction in their statements.
I have analyzed a number of circuit diagrams of high end power amplifiers and priced their bills of materials. I have found that they often have less than $20 worth of parts in them. I conclude that the repetition of the $20 figure again and again is misleading because it is possible that even a high end power amplifier may not cost more than $20 per channel to build.
I've posted the results of representative bench tests of both high end power amplifiers and mid-fi receivers and not seen any definitive trend towards better performance for the high end equipment.
In the past there have been DBTs that compared high end power amps to mid-fi receivers and experienced audiophiles using systems with very fine signal sources and loudspeakers have not been able to hear any differences.
There has been a trend for the circuitry in modern receivers to implement most of the so-called "bells and whistles" (such as bass management) to be implemented with a DSP. Of course calling bass management a "bell and whistle" is highly questionable in itself.
Quibbling aside most of the features in modern receivers are just program code that runs on a DSP chip that has to be there for the component to even just pass a signal, and whose cost is continuously decreasing due to Moore's law. Most such features thus have zero dedicated physical parts associated with them, and so their incremental cost is zero.
So what is the factual, logical basis for all of these unsupported claims?
