Blind Listening Tests & Amplifiers

[Fantastic]

Come off it man ! You can't think I am serious.
Back home in Mars we would have enjoyed it. I enjoy it here too.
Great beer !!!

[carlosfm]

Good thing you are joking.
But I should say beer closes your ears.

[Fantastic]

But I should say beer closes your ears

But opens the mind .................................!
Cheers.

[nw_avphile]

Originally posted by fdegrove
Wasn't the "Reference Amp" the Carver "Silver Seven"?
At least that is what I thought it was, I could be wrong though...

Why on earth would they use an amp that Carver was already intimately familiar with? There's no way it was the Silver Seven because the article talks in several places about Bob being newly exposed to the Reference Amp. So yes, you are wrong.

To carlosfm et al, it would strongly appear that even the editors of Stereophile could not hear the difference between a $700 amplifier and one costing more that $10,000. They make their living hearing the smallest of differences between audio components but you can say they have bad ears if you like. You can certainly argue they're normally driven by their advertisers, but in this case, they were going against them.

As for the "state-of-the-art" advancing in the 15 years since the Stereophile Challenge, we need to be realistic about that. Are kitchen knives better today than they were 15 years ago? What about wood furniture or leather shoes?

Some things become "mature" and do not benefit from further refinements. Of course, the people that SELL them would like everyone to believe otherwise. One could aruge that audio amps were plenty mature in the late 1980's. Of course the companies selling amps would love to have you buy a new amplifier as often as possible. So that's just another reason to propagate the myths about amplifiers.

But from a technology point of view, if you ignore the latest "fad" components (that nobody has objectively proven make any audible difference at all), little has changed in audio amps since the 80's. The same basic circuit topologies in use then are still widely in use now. The measured performance hasn't changed much (if anything it's gotten worse overall).

There are some relatively new things in the audio world, namely SACD, DVD-Audio, multichannel, digital amplifiers, DSP, digital room correction, networking, etc. But the basic analog amplifier in the Gainclone isn't much different than the ones that have been around for decades.

[SY]

A little birdie told me that the reference amps were Conrad-Johnson.

[Fantastic]

I was serious when I said that after 30 years most good amplifiers must be very close to each other. It should not be surprising that some are hard to differentiate.
After all we are the smartest living creatures around..........aren't we ?

[rick57]

Hi mb
You mentioned (about 10 days ago) that you swapped places between an AKSA 55 with tweaks (Nirvana +), a Krell and a gainclone-like amp.
I’m considering building either a Peter Daniel gainclone or an AKSA 55 with Nirvana +,
This is not just another gainclone

First what can say about the gainclone - a Peter Daniel design, what chip, etc?
Putting things in context: What load/ type are your speakers?

You and your wife consistently identify them, but what are relative sound qualities?
How well does the AKSA justify the extra time & cost?


TIA

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Exactly the opposite. Peter Walker (Quad) said many times over the years that two "competently designed" amplifiers operating within their load capabilities sound indistinguishable. And his amps were quite competently designed.

Seems your "competent" is not the same as mine.

Same goes for Julian Vereker's Naim amps, although for different reasons.

Get real pls, there where better designed amps available, even way back then.

Sorry to day so, but I won't judge anything by those standards nowadays.

Hate to disagree but those are my sentiments,

[SY]

Take it up with Peter Walker. A Ouija Board will help.

[fdegrove]

Hi,

Take it up with Peter Walker.

I'll have to use that board, won't I?

LOL...relax and have a glass of Cabernet on me.