No. The whole aim of an amplifier is to amplify cleanly. Clean amps should all sound the same. Amp design is all about engineering trade-offs and exploring the different ways to get there!
Rather than being disrespectful it acknowledges the quality of the majority of amps, in particular compared to the sound transducers they work with.
And they do, at least those with absolutely zero distortion. Otherwise it's flavor of the month. The better they get the more similar they sound. Hence the variation in defining quality.
Remember the adage, "If it measures good and sounds bad...
anyone remembers Bob Carver's challenge ?
The Carver Challenge | Stereophile.com
That's always my reply to these threads.
All amps sound the same, that's why Bob Carver took on a challenge to specifically voice a modest solid state amp to sound like a premium tube amp.
"Is it possible to make a $700 "mainstream-audio" power amplifier sound exactly like a high-priced perfectionist amplifier? Bob Carver, of Carver Corporation, seemed to think he could, so we challenged him to prove it.
The question posed above seems laughable."
"After the second day of listening to his final design, we threw in the towel and conceded Bob the bout."
"The next morning, I told Dick Olsher over the phone what we had found. "Bull- ****!" was his reasoned response. "That just can't be."
I KNOW amplifiers sound different.
I bought a NAD3020D to use until I build my F6. It was maybe, maybe, as good as the Sure 3116 amp I was using before. That was with the direct inputs, the Bluetooth on the NAD was designed to make pianos sound bad!
The Pass ACA was much, much, better.
I built that F6 and didn't really like it that much and preferred the ACA. That finally changed when I paired the F6 with ACP+ pre-amp.
So listen for yourself and decide. The best amp is the one you most enjoy listening to.
-Tom-
I bought a NAD3020D to use until I build my F6. It was maybe, maybe, as good as the Sure 3116 amp I was using before. That was with the direct inputs, the Bluetooth on the NAD was designed to make pianos sound bad!
The Pass ACA was much, much, better.
I built that F6 and didn't really like it that much and preferred the ACA. That finally changed when I paired the F6 with ACP+ pre-amp.
So listen for yourself and decide. The best amp is the one you most enjoy listening to.
-Tom-
I think the point to be taken from the Carver Challenge article was that the high-end amp and the mass-market amp sounded different BY DESIGN. Bob Carver built an amp that he felt would sound best with the majority of speakers it would be paired with. He could come arbitrarily close to replicating the output (and sound) of the high-end amp, and as a result of matching the outputs, changed some of the things on his subsequent designs.
The Stereophile people end by speculating whether the sound of the amp is intellectual property that should be protected and wondering whether "copying" the sound of another amp was ethical.
It doesn't seem like all amps sound the same.
The Stereophile people end by speculating whether the sound of the amp is intellectual property that should be protected and wondering whether "copying" the sound of another amp was ethical.
It doesn't seem like all amps sound the same.
maybe I'm wrong, but I had impression of them automatically glorifying process of creation of HiEnd amp, while belittling process of creation of non-HiEnd amp
it says to me , I know I'm repeating my self, that they, evidently, aren't familiar with process, in slightest amount
and speaking about possible IP of "sound character" is ....... well ..........
I'm wasting my time , while drinking first morning coffee
it says to me , I know I'm repeating my self, that they, evidently, aren't familiar with process, in slightest amount
and speaking about possible IP of "sound character" is ....... well ..........
I'm wasting my time , while drinking first morning coffee
Early on in the thread, indra was talking about something really interesting, about how the phase of the harmonics of the amplifier can help cancel out some of the distortion from the speaker, which is mainly 2nd harmonic. This is the most fascinating thing I have heard and it very much aligns with the listening experience.
I have a negative phase second harmonic amp on hand and I will run some measurements and report back. The subjective observation with this amp is that it has much better soundstaging and definition, which would make sense if it is indeed canceling out the speaker's 2nd harmonic distortion, leaving more third harmonic that I have found to be subjectively correlated to how good the soundstage is.
I have a negative phase second harmonic amp on hand and I will run some measurements and report back. The subjective observation with this amp is that it has much better soundstaging and definition, which would make sense if it is indeed canceling out the speaker's 2nd harmonic distortion, leaving more third harmonic that I have found to be subjectively correlated to how good the soundstage is.
I disagree. Fear of current crop vaccines is proportional to mistrust of government. And mistrust of consent forms. It has little to do with the limits of understanding.
Okay, here's a measurement of a DEF amp with a JBL2226 15" woofer at 100 Hz (ignore the scaling and the scale for now). There are two measurements with the polarity reversed for the second measurement. The blue shows the difference between the measurements.
We see some second and third harmonic, but no difference. Makes sense because the amp's distortion is probably 20 db or more below the speaker's. Got an other ideas to test? Indra, others?
We see some second and third harmonic, but no difference. Makes sense because the amp's distortion is probably 20 db or more below the speaker's. Got an other ideas to test? Indra, others?
Attachments
Perhaps you want to measure at ~1W output and also check relevant thread on how Circlomanen made his measurement at "Triodity" to cancel loudspeaker distortion.
Fear and mistrust of government is also based on limited understanding. If you understood better, accepting that everyone makes mistakes without immediately calling up dark conspiracies, your fear (and mistrust) would dwindle.
It's very simple: the better educated people are, the more they are likely to understand and trust science and government and the more they are likely to take the shot. And vice versa.
It's one of the factors why less educated people are in general less healthy and have shorter lifespan.
Note that lower education doesn't mean lower intelligence, not at all. But the reasons for that would go into politics, a forbidden area here.
Jan
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Thanks! One Watt will be loud. I will try, but it seems the amps needs to have much higher disortion to see it in the graph. Not sure I can get there. But I know what I hear