It's all about technique ... if you want able to distinguish things like amplifiers you stress test them - wind them up a bit on speakers which aren't a "nice" load, then you hear them clearly misbehave, in a certain way - that's their "signature", then when you drop the volume you are now attuned to that artifact, and you can still hear the behaviour, only it's far less obvious, a casual listener would most likely be completely unaware; except that he loses interest in listening to the sound, and he can't really say why, when you ask him.
The truly competent amplifiers don't react to the stress loading, they just "laugh at you" and keep on nonchalantly producing good sound - they're the ones to keep ...
I don't see it as a 'sad situation' that there are (undeniably) closed minds, far from it. Rather its a marketing opportunity. David Ricardo is alleged to have said long ago 'profits are made from differential stupidity'. So to leverage a business opportunity its only necessary to be a little less closed-minded than the rest.
however the easy profits seem to be on the side of exploiting ignorance of human perceptual fundamentals
salesmen up selling with a hand on the volume control, talking up literal nonsense
setting their marks "norms" for how much of your budjet you should hand over for technically absurd cables
the glossy rags selling story lines, milking human social needs for ego massages, identifying as a audiophile, pushing fake connoisseurism
salesmen up selling with a hand on the volume control, talking up literal nonsense
setting their marks "norms" for how much of your budjet you should hand over for technically absurd cables
the glossy rags selling story lines, milking human social needs for ego massages, identifying as a audiophile, pushing fake connoisseurism
Last edited:
Not to worry, Jan, I got your meaning. I hope I answered it to your satisfaction.
I agree.
That's why I keep the AR94, as a representative of a not very nice load, the JBL Ti600 as an approximate market average, and mine as about as easy a load as a dynamic speaker can hope to be.
Any amp I am playing with for whatever reason has to go through the whole loop and come out high and dry. Obviously, not all can manage that. If it's a supermarket Technics, I don't hold it against him if the ARs trip him up, it's unreasonable to expect top notch behavior from a cheap, low powered amp, but any one of them aspiring to any status does have to go through it all with no nonsense.
So far, the two who did best, obviously in my view, are the ones I use regularly, the old Marantz 170 DC (made on 24 March 1978) and the H/K Citation 24 and the 680 integrated. They simply did what they were supposed to do, no funny stuff right up to near clipping level. Admittedly, their clipping levels were in all cases above their nominal power levels, so I can conclude they were good deals because they fulfilled their nominal specs.
Which is not to say all were the same sounding, only that they all kept their composure and maintained their perfomance levels. The Marantz was and is the most polite sounding, it's very pleasant to liste to from morning to midnight, but it lacks the sheer energy and immediacy of the Citation 24. The H/K 680 is clean as a whistle, but has a somewhat darker sound than its bigger brother; then again, its bigger brother costs about twice its price, and needs a not cheap preamp to boot.
Just one note here. The Marantz is strictly speaking not origianl any more. They use one dual concentric 2x12,000 uF/56V Elna cap for both channels. These are almost impossible to find these days, so I repleced them with two separate BC Components 22,000 uF/63V caps. Only just managed to squeeze them in. However, the total capacitance is now 83.3% higher than it originally was, and fortunately the diodes used in the bridge rectifier were originally powerful enough not to care.
Needless to say, the Karan took it all in its stride, but at its price point, anything less would be unacceptable. Since its output is considerably higher that that of the Marantz (nominally 2x250W/4 Ohms against Marantz' 2x130W/4 Ohms), I did not dare to let it really rip for fear for the speakers.
I agree completely. This reminds me of a story Milan Karant passed on to me. He says his Singapore dealer asked him if he cam make his amps go louder at lower pot turns. Allegedly, some of his customers wondered how come a Yamaha integrated plays louder at pot position of 9 than his amp. Since he insisted, Karan gave him a greater gain version.
Mine is the normal gain version. At 9 o'clock on the volume pot, it really rocks, but then I do have slightly above average loudspeakers.
You are the one who has no interest in the testing methods used by scientists in the field, don't turn this around.
I defend the viewpoints of the scientists in the field.
You are the one defending pseudo science.
You are making straw man arguments here.
I stated this more than once, in other words, but I'll state it again: Objective measurements mean nothing to me. I only trust my ears in level matched ears only testing. And I like equipment that doesn't add audible artefacts to the signal.
If were talking about transducers then yes, I agree with you.
Without any hope of getting a coherent answer, telt's try this in another way:
What does it take for you to declare an amplfier to be better than another amplifier with the same nominal output into a load of 8 Ohms, in case when under lab testing both turn up with very similar results, so similar that you'd say that they are the same for all practical purposes?
What does it take for you to declare an amplfier to be better than another amplifier with the same nominal output into a load of 8 Ohms, in case when under lab testing both turn up with very similar results, so similar that you'd say that they are the same for all practical purposes?
In my world the solution is straightforward ... the recording is king - either a system is good enough to make the listening to whatever album worthwhile, or it's not - if it's not, then the system is defective, insufficient, somewhat incompetent ... work has to be done to make the playback better ...
- Status
- Not open for further replies.