He must mean the sound of an underpowered power amp or the same symptoms caused by too small of a gauge or too lengthy cables, that's about all it could be. I have witnessed a lot of folks go from a low current power amp with too small gauge cables to a decent high current amp and properly gauged cables' They then presume that there was an engineering problem with the previous unit. Nope, the problem was (of course) that *most modern speakers in a decent sized room require pretty hefty amps to properly deliver transients* The first time a fellow hears those transients un-smeared, well...... they proceed to have an eargasm and promptly fall to their knees paying unearned homage to the Gods of whomever made the decent higher current amp they wsitched the previous amp (or series of previous amps) out with. Was I one of those guys? You bet I was! In the 70's a replaced a decent but underpowered Marantz receiver with a Hafler 200 and buddy, it was on for me and Hafler forever. David Hafler saw GODOFALLAMPS 'till I heard exactly the same thing sound of a bunch of other good brands of high current power amps also not clipping or smearing transients, BGW,Carver,Bryston,Threll. Old story for a lot of us I'm sure. If you can hear your amps/preamps, they are not amps/preamps, they are sound editing devices.
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As Pete points out underpowered amps will do it as one form of distortion, and dealing with the latter is when psychoacoustics then comes to the party: a misbehaving system will present excess audible distortion, which the mind has to quite actively filter out, it has to "work" at doing the separating - hence the "sound" of a system, which is the signature distortion that the combination of components produces.
Anything that alters that signature distortion in any way, a very slight variation of FR in the treble or higher could be enough, caused by the change of cable, is immediately apparent because it makes the job of mental filtering harder or easier - the "sound has changed" . What has really happened is that the distortion spectrum has slightly altered, and your brain "thanks you" if its job has been made a little easier ...
All academic.We stopped using bad amps long ago, that subject is closed, get a good amp. Next actual issue? a real one, one that you can hear? The chances are most of your DACs are very poor etc. Who does not have a dedicated DAC now?
Cables, sound change, we can do better with our explanations, as cable sound and using cables to tune a system is real snake oil............
Bad systems, rather than just bad amps, still abound - the recent hifi show I went to had roughly 95% poor sound, 5% promising sound. I always look at the big picture - what's stopping a particular system working properly, rather than pointing a finger at a favourite villain, like DAC, speaker, or amp.
Agreed, cables should not be used to tune sound, I bought my first and last set of fancy cables nearly 30 years ago, because they did make a substantial positive change to the sound to my ears at the time, in the demo of them. However, I found what some of the truly important factors were in my experiments after that, and never worried particularly about cables, apart from how to correctly use them, since.
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An amp is only underpowered when driven to clipping.
My least efficient speaker driver is 87db/watt (sub) and has a 500 watt plate amp controlling it. All other drivers are by themselves or summed to 90db/watt minimum.
Since my three current actively crossed over systems never hit more than 85 db peaks at 1 metre, the class a 7 to 12 watt amps are fine on mids and treble.
Since trying fully active, I hear the music a lot more, and notice artifacts not at all anymore.
The fascinating part to me is varying crossover points on the fly, and hearing how differently the room is loaded at all frequencies , without changing volume settings.
I do use small gauge wire, but at the small wattages, doubt this to be an audible issue.
I seem to've gone the opposite amp route from you- started with a thousand watt BGW in 1986; am now satisfied with just a few watts.
Many paths to the same destination , apparently.
A good way of expressing the process of optimising - the artifacts are most assuredly still there, but they become less and less noticeable, the ear/brain can easily discard them as not being relevant. In a poor system every artifact screams at you, they constantly intrude into your awareness.
Going active is a smart route, bypasses a lot of issues, but is not essential. Being a sucker for punishment, 😀, I've done it the hard way, using the most boring, conventional technology - and have proven to myself many times that taking enough care, using standard gear, can get one to the "promised land", 😛.
A good small amp is a big amp driven less. It doesnt work the other way, therefore in our situation, small amp are an added variable. All variables to a straight wire with gain are to be stricken out.
I think that a big amp that stays in class a for many watts eliminates a variable, (possible crossover anomilies) therefore as there are no drawbacks to them (no don't go there I am sane and they make great heaters in winter, as all electronic devices are 100% effficient as heaters) they are a good idea, One I havent implemented yet, but will at financial opportunity.
Where I think a lot of people get confused is that they hear a set of electronics that they are told is equivalent to "straight wire with gain" - and it doesn't sound very nice, or musical, especially at higher volumes. So they think, what's the point of this, I don't want to hear sound like that - and go off in other directions. Of course, that system they heard was quite some way from being what they were told it was, or what the spec's said; the distortion artifacts were still far too audible, and disturbing - but many people refuse to accept that, and blame the recording, the speaker setup, the room acoustics, etc, etc.
Some type of breakthrough in thinking has to occur, to get people to push for genuinely better sound, and to understand what they should be looking towards ...
Some type of breakthrough in thinking has to occur, to get people to push for genuinely better sound, and to understand what they should be looking towards ...
If it is a straight wire with gain it sounds just like the musical, if it is not it is editng the musical. Editng is done by engineeers and end users not randomly via poor amplification. There are no good sounding electronics, only poor sounding electronics. The words that desfibe any amp that sounds different than another good amp is this amp has low fidelity. There are no special power amps only bad power amps and good power amps based on fidelitg to input signal.
Breakthrough thinking.
1. Well converted A/Ded source uncompressed or lossless @ 44.1 16 or better,
2. DAs 117db snr or better, (that 117 figure is also proof of negledgable jitter btw)
4. Clean electronics with enough current to drive speakers.
5. Speakers Floyde Toole would appove of.
6. A good room layed out for music not for pandering to some butt-holes sense of interior fashion.
All relatively inexpensive i might add.
7. Cheap adaquate cabling from anywhere Monoprice etc.
1. Well converted A/Ded source uncompressed or lossless @ 44.1 16 or better,
2. DAs 117db snr or better, (that 117 figure is also proof of negledgable jitter btw)
4. Clean electronics with enough current to drive speakers.
5. Speakers Floyde Toole would appove of.
6. A good room layed out for music not for pandering to some butt-holes sense of interior fashion.
All relatively inexpensive i might add.
7. Cheap adaquate cabling from anywhere Monoprice etc.
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If you presented that scenario, as a working demo, to 100 audiophiles representing a good cross-section of audio enthusiasts, how many would:
A) Think it was the greatest sound they had ever heard,
through to ...
Z) Walk out immediately in disgust?
A) Think it was the greatest sound they had ever heard,
through to ...
Z) Walk out immediately in disgust?
Option C, many of them would......
Present me with a check and a commission to mix or master their next recording. Or consult on a system. I put my money where my mouth is.
Present me with a check and a commission to mix or master their next recording. Or consult on a system. I put my money where my mouth is.
New Orleans guys? Its not far. Here I am speaking to audiophiles, who are welcome to stop by. Admittedly my clients are mostly artists, perhaps a tougher bunch even.
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If you really had a 'straight wire with gain' then you could demonstrate that by attenuating the gain away then putting lots of these gain/attenuate pairs in series. If N of them sounded identical to 1 of them (apart from perhaps a little extra noise) then you could be confident that either:
1. you really did have a straight wire with gain
2. you had a distorter which was not cumulative - but it is difficult to imagine how this might work
1. you really did have a straight wire with gain
2. you had a distorter which was not cumulative - but it is difficult to imagine how this might work
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