Amps vs Amps vs AVRs

[doors666]

Hi guys,

I have been doing a lot of research on amps in recent times on the web. Yet to come to a conclusion, but I will list some interesting threads and some quotes from these. Personally, I have little experience in these things and havent really done a/b comparisons or blind tests. If you are posting your opinions, please do mention if you have tried these things, lots of different amps etc or you are talking from knowledge gained from the net or other people's opinions, just like I have. I know that this is a sensitive topic, but please keep the discussions civil or I will request the mods to close this thread. Once again, my experience is limited and please dont shoot the messenger.

When we are talking about an amp, its power amp. Please ignore the preamp section of amp or AVR while discussing it as thats a different ball game altogether. Please also leave tube amps out of this as these are also a different ballgame.

The whole idea behind this is that a power amps job is to just amplify the signal. If you are talking about the sound signature of the amp, that is supposed to be a bad amp (atleast theoretically) as an amp is not supposed to have a sound signature, just amplify the signal as it is. And we are also talking about amps above a certain threshold, you can buy 1000/- amps on sp road also.

Gedlee (aka Dr Earl geddes) is a renowned name in the audio world (check on the web about him). He uses a pioneer AVR (chipamp based analog amp). There are tons of threads discussing this and why he considers this to be the best amp, worthy of his use. Heres one, he himself is there on this thread.

Geddes on distortion measurements - diyAudio

Heres a very interesting thread. I am going to quote some very interesting snippets from this to whet your appetite:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=17458691&postcount=267


Audiophiles are strange people. They say that the ear is one of the best tools around, but their ears don't hear the massive distortion that their turntable gives when they play the "superior" vinyl format.
Their ear can hear big change in power cables, but it cannot hear the massive destruction the average room without any acoustic treatment have.


And herere a couple of my favorites::lol:

In sum, no matter what you may have heard elsewhere, audio store owner Steve Zipser was unable to tell reliably, based on sound alone, when his $14,000 pair of class A monoblock amplifiers was replaced by a ten-year old Japanese inte- grated amplifier in his personal reference system, in his own listening room, using program material selected personally by him as being especially revealing of differences. He failed the test under hardwired no-switching conditions, as well as with a high-resolution fast-comparison switching mode. As I have said before, when the answers aren't shared in advance, "Amps Is Amps" even for the Goldenest of Ears.

Another One from the same thread:

Editors of Stereo Review magazine (now called Sound and Vision) conducted a high profile test of their own, recruiting expert double blind tester David Clark of DLC Designs (who does such tests professionally for CD players and hi-fi VCRs). The test was reported in detail by Ian G. Masters and published in Stereo Review magazine. The test was designed to be as objective as possible, using the same system, speakers, playback etc. They had a panel that consisted of some 25 listeners all audio/hi-fi professionals with an equal number of hi-fi objectivists who believed there would be little to no perceptible difference between amplifiers, and audiophiles who believed there was a huge difference between expensive or tube amps and their cheaper counterparts.

The array of amplifiers was laughable, from the most exotic to the most humble and everything in between. Topping off the high end was a Julius Futterman tube amp array, consisting of two $6,000 tube mono-block amps with separate power supplies, a total of four giant boxes that take up the space of a small fridge. The bottom end was represented by a $200 Pioneer receiver; it even had a cheesy five band equalizer on the face and a slide volume control. Its the kind of device that makes audiophiles cringe. The testing took place in an acoustically neutral environment that favors hi-fi listening but not one particular amp.

Middling brands included some nice NAD 2200, Hafler DH-1 120, and a Mark Levinson ML-11 $2000 50 watt per channel amp that delivers 25 volt peak power with current of 12.5 amperes. Now thats a high current amp. The A-B testing was preceded by a session where each listener got to toy with the amps and freely listen to each knowing what they were listening to. Doing the sighted listening, many of the listeners claimed to hear a distinct difference. Some of the skeptics were even admitting that they could actually hear significant differences between the sound quality of the different amps.

When it came down to the blind A-B testing of the 25 testers, only 3 participants scored 60% or greater correct when they guessed which amp was which, when comparing between two. Nobody got higher than a 63% score. Most amazing was that in testing between the Pioneer amp and the Futterman array, only 114 of 212 listeners could tell the difference -- thats a 54% correct guess! This is the most extreme example: audiophiles not able to tell the difference between a $200 Pioneer receiver and a $12,000 separate mono-block tube amp array with separate power supplies.



Let the fun begin.

 

[anm]

I thought I was the only one!

 

[rishiguru]

Excellent topic.:clapping:

 

[sarge_in]

Just for kicks - I know 1 person who may disagree with you:

Revive the system change thread?

Look at the last post on the page for amps he has owned so far

 

[doors666]

Just for kicks - I know 1 person who may disagree with you:

Revive the system change thread?

Look at the last post on the page for amps he has owned so far

oh I am sure there are quite a few people that are going to disagree right here on this forum. Even I am not sure I fully agree with everything thats posted above. But I do see some sense in this. If a 1000$ 50w amp does a perfect job of amplification of incoming signal, how will a 5000$ amp better it. Amplifiers are not complicated objects, there is no rocket science in it. You should see the populated pcb of a nelson pass f50 amp, my set top box remote control has a bigger pcb and more components, and that is a highly regarded amp we are talking about here.:lol:

To put things into perspective here, I have a yamaha rxv663 avr (running in pure direct mode with preamp bypass with asus essence as source) and a topping amp. I will make a myref or f50 someday, but then these are cheap as hell, I mean what commercial stuff can you get for 15k.

 

[jaudere]

hmmm,
When i did A-B testing (not blind)between 25k denon pma 710 & 11k norge 1000, i could not tell the difference.

Then at home, i did a-b between my yam avr & a powered mixer by a company called proland. I must say that there was significant difference and the mixer was much better especially in lower frequencies. I had to sell the mixer simply because it was huge and had oddly placed controls.

I did a-b between yam ax 497 and Dnm 'high end' amp twice. First time i thought that dnm sounded better but second time i could not make out difference despite it being non blind. Should one blame it on 'yam ns8900'(read non revealing) speakers.

When i did a-b between norge 4242 &marantz pm6002,again non blind, i did feel that marantz had less background noise. However it was not much to justify 3 times high cost. In the end, i waited till the cost difference was 2X. I thought that it was justified given the remote controller facility, better looks, better resale value if i go for upgrade,brand name and some custom duty.

 

[Viki]

I'm no Audiophile, but I will say this: I think Speakers make a much bigger difference as you go up the price chain, than do Amps. Thats also why I think its flawed to spend equal amounts on source, amp and speakers, ornthe 30/30/30/10 system (10 being cables). If anyone asks me, I say 50/20/20/10, with 50 being speakers.

Just my 2 bits.

Viki

 

[ssf]

I am a A/V novice but I too am of the opinion that the speakers and the source (hardware / software, as a member put it) are the two most important objects in the chain.

I think I can differentiate between speakers and I do think that music played on my CDP sounds smoother than on my DVD player although this could be because of the difference in quality which I am assuming could be due to the difference in cost.

So, when I look at what amp to buy, I am looking more at the power of the amp rather than quality which I might not be able to judge or hear.

I could be totally wrong on this so I am open for correction.

 

[doors666]

hmmm,
When i did A-B testing (not blind)between 25k denon pma 710 & 11k norge 1000, i could not tell the difference.

Then at home, i did a-b between my yam avr & a powered mixer by a company called proland. I must say that there was significant difference and the mixer was much better especially in lower frequencies. I had to sell the mixer simply because it was huge and had oddly placed controls.

I did a-b between yam ax 497 and Dnm 'high end' amp twice. First time i thought that dnm sounded better but second time i could not make out difference despite it being non blind. Should one blame it on 'yam ns8900'(read non revealing) speakers.

When i did a-b between norge 4242 &marantz pm6002,again non blind, i did feel that marantz had less background noise. However it was not much to justify 3 times high cost. In the end, i waited till the cost difference was 2X. I thought that it was justified given the remote controller facility, better looks, better resale value if i go for upgrade,brand name and some custom duty.

Were you using these as a pre-amp also. You also need to level match the two amps otherwise you will always find a difference. Another factor is that the amps need to be above a certain threshold in terms of quality. The idea is not that all amps are the same, but two well designed amps should not show much of a difference.

I remember a famous quote (not related to your post).

In science, contrary evidence causes one to question a theory. In religion, contrary evidence causes one to question the evidence." - Floyd Toole, audio scientist.

And make no mistake, audio is a religion.

 

[captrajesh]

It has become fashionable to question the well established facts citing some unverified tests / comparisons carried out by unknown people often at obscure locations to which the person questioning is not privy to any information. Pretty naive IMO. One would be given more credence if they cite personal example but alas, we all are armchair critics after all.

For anyone who strives perfection in what he or she does, he/she must firstly enjoy what they are doing and only then that he/she can do that thing to the best of his/her ability and satisfaction. Same would be applicable to listening to music. One must really love the job of listening to music setting everything else aside failing which one cannot do the job to their best of his/her ability.

Another thing is, one must know the objective of the job at hand. One must know what is one expected to do. Citing my personal example, I was happily listening to and enjoying music for more than a decade on my Kenwood mini monitors, Denon Integrated and Sony CDP which are just budget gears. Though I used to read magazines like AV Max, Stereophile etc., I was not aware of the nuances of 'audiophilia' Only after joining HFV and going through the various discussions about sound that I realised what I was missing.

As far as my understanding goes, those who proclaim that they cannot perceive differences in in gears at different price points are most likely not into the hobby of listening to music seriously. Just my personal opinion so no flames please.

 

[venk61176]

Well said Captain. Just now I wasted my half an hour interchanging my stereo rig with denon receiver.

Any day my stereo amp is much much better. As said all these comparison need to happen with good speaker and good source.

Ofcourse there are exceptions like Arcam AV receiver. Please give exposure, leben, and creek a audition before even you conclude.

Thanks
Venkat

 

[captrajesh]

Any day my stereo amp is much much better. As said all these comparison need to happen with good speaker and good source.

Same with me. Yesterday, one of our forum members from Bangalore called on me to check out my latest acquisition, a Valve Preamp and SS Power amp. After some time, the Preamp started giving problems and music on one channel would suddenly drop to almost nil. After discovering that the fault was in the stepped attenuator, tried soldering assuming it to be a dry solder. Even then no luck. There seems to be internal fault.

After he left, I realised I have a spare Preamp, a vintage NAD1020A. Since I wanted to listen to music some more time, I quickly hooked it in the chain and since I was continuing from where it stopped, could immediately make out how different it sounds from the tube pre.

I want to add to my previous post; even after one knows what to look for, one must really train hard to perceive each and every subtle difference and this comes only after one listens to different gears extensively. It is very easy to write off stating there are no differences.

 

[sdurani]

"In science, contrary evidence causes one to question a theory. In religion, contrary evidence causes one to question the evidence." - Floyd Toole, audio scientist.

Great quote, from a really nice guy. Harman International is about 45 minutes from where I live. At the invitation of Kevin Voecks (inventor of Revel speakers), I spent three days there earlier this month training on their new ARCOS room tuning system. My instructors were Floyd Toole, Todd Welti, Sean Olive and Alan Devantier. For those that don't know who those gents are, you'll see their names on published whitepapers and AES research papers from Harman.

In the first post you mentioned audio store owner Steve Zipser. For the full story of his listening comparison, click here.

To download Harman whitepapers for free, click here.

To download Harman scientific publications (including AES research papers) for free, click here.

If you have room on your computer, download as many as you can and save them. Harman has a deal with the Audio Engineering Society that allows them to temporarily give people access to AES papers without paying the typical $20 per-publication cost. So grab 'em while they're there.

As for reading, I recommend starting with the whitepapers, since they are less technical and more oriented to us hobbiests. One of the best reads is 'Audio, Science in the Service of Art' by Floyd Toole. Follow that up with Todd Welti's whitepaper on subwoofer placement and Toole's paper on making a good speaker.

That last paper is the result of Harman doing blind listening tests with lots of different loudspeakers in order to find out how measurements correlate with listener preferences. Turned out there were only a few parameters that were important.

 

[doors666]

It has become fashionable to question the well established facts citing some unverified tests / comparisons carried out by unknown people often at obscure locations to which the person questioning is not privy to any information. Pretty naive IMO. One would be given more credence if they cite personal example but alas, we all are armchair critics after all.

For anyone who strives perfection in what he or she does, he/she must firstly enjoy what they are doing and only then that he/she can do that thing to the best of his/her ability and satisfaction. Same would be applicable to listening to music. One must really love the job of listening to music setting everything else aside failing which one cannot do the job to their best of his/her ability.

Another thing is, one must know the objective of the job at hand. One must know what is one expected to do. Citing my personal example, I was happily listening to and enjoying music for more than a decade on my Kenwood mini monitors, Denon Integrated and Sony CDP which are just budget gears. Though I used to read magazines like AV Max, Stereophile etc., I was not aware of the nuances of 'audiophilia' Only after joining HFV and going through the various discussions about sound that I realised what I was missing.

As far as my understanding goes, those who proclaim that they cannot perceive differences in in gears at different price points are most likely not into the hobby of listening to music seriously. Just my personal opinion so no flames please.

Upto a certain extent, I agree to you captain. I also understand that there are differences in sound quality in various and why an integrated is supposed to be better than an AVR. But to hear those differences, first of all, you also need qualified gear. I see people recommending all sorts of expensive amps with low quality speakers, dvd players, cheap cd players, on board sound cards being used as sources, hence I stick my neck out and say that go for an avr because the person purchasing the avr probably will not be able to make out the difference in the two and most probably will not even care.

When I listen to a marantz, onkyo, nad, denon AVRs, amps etc in a showroom, I can hear a difference. Most of the times, its the manufacturer introducing a sound signature into the system. Otherwise how hard is it for an onkyo to tame the brightness in its amps, or NAD to tame the bass.

If you read the dr geddes thread, he also clearly states that the avr he uses is a good one, chipamp based analog one and also states that this does not mean all avrs are equally good. The point being above a certain threshold, is there a point in spending money on amps.

Yes, you can make out the difference in sound quality between an avr and a good amp, but can you do that with two really good amps that are level matched, using the same material and identical audio chain. Say a udcd, myref c, nelson pass f50 etc. Even if you can, will you be able to say that yes, this is the one I like much better than others, and will you be able to still like the others and live with it.

An amp is supposed to have a ruler flat frequency response, which is very easy to achieve (try that with a speaker). Once you have that, how will another amp beat it with significant differences?

 

[captrajesh]

I also understand that there are differences in sound quality in various and why an integrated is supposed to be better than an AVR. But to hear those differences, first of all, you also need qualified gear.

+1. No contest.

I see people recommending all sorts of expensive amps with low quality speakers, dvd players, cheap cd players, on board sound cards being used as sources, hence I stick my neck out and say that go for an avr because the person purchasing the avr probably will not be able to make out the difference in the two and most probably will not even care.

IMHO, just because someone has budget gear in which full nuances of music cannot be heard doesn't mean I should tell him to go ahead and buy an AVR instead of Stereo amp stating both would sound the same. You are well aware of the pitfalls of audiophilia, the up-gradation bug; When it bites, the guy has to upgrade both speakers and amp instead of just the speakers. Isn't it? That's why I harp on auditioning and more auditioning. For a guy who doesn't care after he makes a purchase, it doesn't matter what you and me say because he has already made his purchase and doesn't care. But for a fellow audiophile aspirant who is just a few steps down the ladder, I would be doing disservice if I say both sound the same. Don't you agree?

When I listen to a marantz, onkyo, nad, denon AVRs, amps etc in a showroom, I can hear a difference. Most of the times, its the manufacturer introducing a sound signature into the system.

Again, +1.

above a certain threshold, is there a point in spending money on amps.

Yes I agree. But that threshold point is different for different individuals and that is why you find one chap is happy with his Marantz Wharfdale combo while the other is not happy even with Bryston B&W combo.

An amp is supposed to have a ruler flat frequency response, which is very easy to achieve

Is it. I'm not sure if it is.

Once you have that, how will another amp beat it with significant differences?

Yeah, provided, once you have that.

 

[ssf]

I am under the conception that threads like this one are also for the benefit of audio newbies like me so I take it upon myself to utter my understanding / need after reading enthusiastic discussions on the said subject.

I find it extremely beneficial, um, monetarily, to read that AVR's are good enough for a newbie like me for music. If a 7.1 channel connected to a good pair of speakers in direct mode while listening to music does not give me a reason to complain, I see no reason why I should be going in for a 2 channel amp. Friends who see a reason am sure will.

I also believe that ignorance is bliss in the world of AV. One doesn't need to hear the best there is or own the best there is. One needs to own what one thinks the best there is. One which will give him or her the enjoyment that the music played on respective equipment will bring.

I upgrade only if I feel a lack of quality in sound and if and only if my bank balance permits.

Confictious say, music played on avr or stereo is still music if ears listen.

 

[captrajesh]

If a 7.1 channel connected to a good pair of speakers in direct mode while listening to music does not give me a reason to complain, I see no reason why I should be going in for a 2 channel amp.

I'm curious to know, why would you buy a 7.1 channel amp and connect it to just 2 speakers and listen. It is like buying a 7 seater Maruti Omni and driving to office all for yourself. Don't you think you would be better off buying a Maruti 800 instead? (Unless, you think of using it for weekend outings with your large family in which case it is justified. Just like you would also like to use the AVR to watch movies)

 

[manoj.p]

He may be using it as multi-channel for movies and stereo direct for 2 channel music.

 

[sdurani]

An amp is supposed to have a ruler flat frequency response, which is very easy to achieve

Is it. I'm not sure if it is.

Enough amps have been measured in enough magazine reviews to show that achieving flat response across the human hearing range has been routine for decades. An amp that doesn't have flat frequency response is an equalizer.

 

[ssf]

I'm curious to know, why would you buy a 7.1 channel amp and connect it to just 2 speakers and listen. It is like buying a 7 seater Maruti Omni and driving to office all for yourself. Don't you think you would be better off buying a Maruti 800 instead? (Unless, you think of using it for weekend outings with your large family in which case it is justified. Just like you would also like to use the AVR to watch movies)

Hello Captain,

I watch movies too.

7.1 avr is a future buy. Why 7.1 and not 5.1 ? Maybe to try Bi-amping. Maybe zone 2 music.

Regards,

Sunil