ODS123

This statement: "I contend that such tests are an indictment of blind listening tests in general because of the patently absurd conclusions to which they lead. A notable example is the blind listening test conducted by Stereo Review that concluded that a pair of Mark Levinson monoblocks, an output-transformerless tubed amplifier, and a $220 Pioneer receiver were all sonically identical. (“Do All Amplifiers Sound the Same?” published in the January, 1987 issue.)" Is hilarious. ..So DBT can't be valid b/c it fails to yield the results he expects? And of course as an audio reviewer he has a vested interest in differences being audible and meaningful. Otherwise, what is there for an audio reviewer to opine on? Look, all of this proves the point I made in my original post: just how relevant could such differences be if there is ANY debate at all about their existence? If they were audible and they mattered they surely would be plain to the ear of every non-hearing impaired music lover!! Thank god Harley isn't a researcher who collects and interprets data. ..Like Clinical Trials for Pharma, etc..

No offense taken, it's a fair question. As I said earlier in the thread, I bought the Mac b/c I love the look, the feel, and the feature set, including: wattage meters, mono, bass, treble, and level matching for all inputs. Also, I've always liked the history and heritage of the brand (kinda like Klipsch) and the fact that their gear is (mostly) hand-built in small town in upstate NY. I've lusted for a Mac amp for 20 years. Now, It's my one extravagance. ..I don't own an expensive watch, motorcycle, shore house, BMW, boat, etc.

No, they don't sound the same in the following ways... I can hear more channel crosstalk on the Onkyo. When I play a dvd and switch to an unused input and turn the volume to max, I can hear the dvd bleeding ever so faintly into the unused input. Dead silent on mac when doing same. When I lower the volume slowly, the right channel will go silent just before the left. On the Mac, both channels are perfectly balanced all the way to full attenuation.. When I turn the Onkyo to a comparable volume and pause the source, I can hear a bit more hiss coming through the speakers than I do on the mac switching to Mono is a pain on the Onkyo (but doable which is more than I can say for many exotic pre-amps); it's a piece of cake on the mac. There you have it. 3 ways in which the Mac sounds better. ...But none of these are audible when listening to music at usual levels. ..Not to me, or anyone in my family. And my hearing is excellent for my age and my sense of musical nuance is honed from years of playing then decades of listening to live music - much of it acoustic, unamplified. So, please, it's not my hearing Look, I'm NOT GOING TO CONVINCE those who are already believe in the audibility and significance of differences w/ modern day amps. But MAYBE I'll convince the beginners who come to this forum to regard those who hear differences w/ a bit of skepticism and will therefore ask that any two amps the compare be precisely volume matched and that they are blinded from which amp is being played. ..And this same skepticism should be applied to interconnects, speaker cables, DACs, cd players, etc...

Yikes, that is one long and thoughtful contribution that I will admit I don't have time right now to read in it's entirety. ..But I wholeheartedly agree the above that people should listen with their own ears. However, I would add " ..But take measures to eliminate expectation bias." ..which is real. We have to remember the vast majority of people wanting a hifi system are not particularly interested in making their hifi purchase a years long work in progress. They want to buy it, then spend years listening to it. Let me relate a personal experience with Expectation Bias, one that led to a personal epiphany that much of what we hear is in our heads. Years ago I bought a Monster power conditioner to protect my expensive Bryston amp. Eagerly, I pulled the plug of the Bryston amp from the wall, and plugged it into the Monster. Though I had long been very skeptical about the benefits of power conditioning I couldn’t help but wonder if I would hear a change. To put it mildly, I was amazed by what I heard. My amp sounded better in ways I couldn't quite articulate. The sound was smoother, cleaner and just more "right". ..Just to make sure I wasn't imagining things, I switched back and fourth a couple times. Yep, there was no mistaking it. I decided to go back one last time, so I unplugged the amp. ..And before plugging it back into the wall I was pulled away to do help my wife with something. Returning to it, I decided to first switch on the TV to see how my man Federer was doing during the Wimbledon finals. I hit the TV power button and..... nothing. Huh?? ..I tried again.... nothing. Turns out, during the whole exercise..I wasn't switching the Bryston's power cord back and forth b/w the wall outlet and the Monster strip, I was switching the TV's. Case in point: Expectation Bias is very powerful. .It explains why Asthma patients who are given an inhaler w/ placebo medication in clinical trials experience a 30% reduction in symptoms.

Hence, his recommendation to buy an amp/AVR rated for 4ohms if you have 4ohm speakers. . ..There are many affordable ones. ..My Onkyo TX-NR1030 is rated 4-16ohms and even shows a short-burst rating for 3ohms. My point is that people cite amplifier power ratings as the reason for turning amplifier selection into something of a wine-tasting exercise and it shouldn't.

I bought the Mac b/c I love the look, the feel, and the feature set, including: wattage meters, mono, bass, treble, and level matching for all inputs. Also, I've always liked the history and heritage of the brand (kinda like Klipsch) and the fact that their gear is (mostly) hand-built in small town in upstate NY. I've lusted for a Mac amp for 20 years. Now, It's my one extravagance. ..I don't own a motorcycle, shore house, BMW, boat, etc.. I view Mac gear the way same way I view expensive watches. Brands like Jaeger-LeCoultre & Rolex watches are admired for their heirloom-like build quality. But any objectivist will note that they don't keep better time than a Seiko. ..Same w/ Mac gear. It definitely feels better to the touch, has better features but I don't believe for minute that it sounds better than the NAD that preceded it. That is, except for things like balance control linearity, noise-floor, cross-talk b/w inputs. The Mac is better than any amp I've had in these respects, but these are non-factors when music is playing. I connected my Cornwalls to my Onkyo TX-NR1030 AVR while my Mac was being serviced and they sounded every bit as marvelous.

Can you point to a present day affordable AVR or Stereo receiver that claims stability into 4 ohms that really isn't stable?? I think if an amp/receiver has a 4ohm rating it should be fine. As an aside, In the some lofty Audiophile circles many will claim that an amp is ONLY stable if it doubles it's power into 4ohms. This is ridiculous overkill and begs to be gamed. ..To do this all a MFG has to do is understate it's 8ohm performance. For example: If an amps puts out 120 watts into an 8 ohm load and 150 watts into a 4ohm load before exceeding audible levels of distortion, the manufacture just needs to give the amp a 75 watts rating into 8ohms, and voila! An amp that doubles it's power into a 4ohm load. To Beginners: This obsession with amplifier stability is unnecessary. See this from Andrew Jones, a highly respected speaker designer. https://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-stop-worrying-about-speaker-impedance/

Okay comparing in quick succession may be difficult, but how about precise volume matching? Otherwise, the louder amp - even if by just 3db or so - usually gets the nod as sounded better. And listening long term is fraught with challenges too. Our hearing can change daily based on allergies which cause swelling and fluid build-up in the inner ear. Stress can affect our hearing as well. My ability to relax and fully "hear" the music waxes and wanes with stress levels that change on an hourly/ daily/ weekly basis. ..So I urge beginners to weigh both of these view points and decide which makes more sense to them. Compare amps side by side with precisely matched volume levels, or compare over months on end. And how would you do this w/out actually owning both amps? And beginners should also know that these differences people claim to hear b/w amplifiers do not correlate with any measured parameter. ..This is not the case with speakers. And yes, I listen to music for pleasure. I have thousands of CDs and LPs. By comparison, most (I can't say all) golden-eared audiophiles I have known have had MUCH smaller music libraries.

Responses have been interesting thus far. ..To those who contend they hear huge and significant differences b/w Solid State amplifiers that share similar measurements I would ask how are you comparing them?? Are they with the same speakers, same listening environment and with volume levels precisely matched?? Are they compared in quick succession? To beginners: My contention that electronics sound mostly the same aside, there are still differences to be considered when choosing amplifiers ( Pre/Pwr Separates, Integrateds, or AVRs). For example: if you listen at low levels, do both channels attenuate the same as you reduce the volume? I had a Bryston Pre-amp that frustratingly had a severe imbalance. When I reduce volume to very quiet levels (for early am listening, for ex.) I would have to turn the balance knob half-way to the right to equalize the volume. Otherwise, the left channel would continue playing after the right has been fully attenuated. I even sent it back to Bryston to have it adjusted. ..Upon return, it was improved but not perfect. ...I also had a Peachtree Nova with this problem and it didn't have a balance knob. ..Hence, I sold it. Balance controls are a must, imho. How quiet is the amp? ..With highly efficient Klipsch speakers, it can a problem if your amp has a loud noise floor. ..This wouldn't be a problem during normal listening, but it's an aggravation to hear buzz/ hum b/w songs. Remarkably, my expensive Bryston combo and Peachtree had the loudest levels. ..My Onkyo AVR is better than both. My Mac is dead quiet. Feature set: To my thinking, the practical usefulness of tone controls/ balance/ input-leveling/ and a mono switch make them indispensable. Many songs are badly mixed; a slight adjustment can make an otherwise unlistenable song enjoyable and worth keeping. I wouldn't even consider an amp w/out them. Golden eared audiophiles (but not electrical engineers) will suggest that the few signal breaks needed to incorporate these features will damage the sound. ..But I suggest you think hard on this contention. Ever notice how many signal breaks there are in a mixing board?? ..I'm sure Dark Side of The Moon was mixed on a board with hundreds and hundreds of signal breaks, yet it remains a magnificent sounding recording. .My McIntosh Integrated has tone controls, balance, and mono switch,, but you don't need to spend nearly that much. My Onkyo AVR has them too, as do most AVR's.

Very commendable - I agree wholeheartedly.

Well, yes... Everyone is of course free to view Hifi any way they care to. ..This is not in dispute; it is self-evident. ..And I'm not trying to harsh you for having your own perspective. But, again, when beginners enter this hobby they should clearly understand that much of what people claim to hear is very likely the result of expectation bias. As for being emotionally connected w/ music. ..I can tell you that I most certainly am. ..I played it for years, have been to countless live (and many all-acoustic ) shows; have 1200 CDs/ 700 LPs and probably several thousand digital songs. ..Music is hugely important to me. ..And my hifi has only a little to do with that. Some of the biggest music fans I've known have had very mediocre systems. ..Heck, my grand-parents listened to music for hours each day on a crappy all-in-one compact system from the mid-60's. ..And before that, they listened endlessly on a table radio.

Yes, to chris A and Zen Traveler, I agree that tube amplifiers that are NOT engineered to be linear will sound different from amps that are. But some Tube amp are quite linear. For example, McIntosh tube amplifiers are so linear that distinguishing them from SS amps would be near impossible. People who are new to this hobby should know that when tube amps sound different than S/S, it's not because they "do a better job of revealing the true warmth of the music" (as suggested by tube fans), but rather it's simply distortion. ..Distortion that did not exist in the original source but rather was added by a non-linear amplifier.

Yes, this is of course true,

Meaning what? Yes, the amp must be able to provide enough power to drive the desired loudspeakers without distorting. ..Which nowadays is very easy, quite affordable and does not require anything having to do w/ emotions.

Your contributions above and in the rest of the thread are noted w/ thanks. I find it stunning that more people aren't interested in separating imagined differences from real in their approach to hifi. In another thread about Loudspeaker Cables I suggest this simple experiment: "Do this... and decide for yourself: Buy pricey cables from a seller who has a return policy. Now, hook one of them to one channel on your pre-amp (receiver, whatever), then your current cable to the other. Now, push your speakers close together (ie., almost touching), then play music with either your mono button pushed, or (if you don't have one) play a mono recording. Use your balance control to switch b/w the speakers. Here a difference? Even better, have a friend hook up the cables without you knowing which is hooked to which channel. Again, use balance control to switch b/w channels. Do you hear a difference?? Please report back your results" Not ONE person showed any interest in doing this. ..Just more, "...Well, if I hear a difference, that's good enough for me!" It's strange that we buy gear designed by engineers who are clearly practitioners of The Scientific Method, then dismiss the supporting logic and rigor of the Scientific Method when we go out and buy gear. ..For many its something more akin to tasting wines. I can only imagine what the EE's must say about golden-eared hi-fi enthusiasts... Indeed, I wonder what Paul W. Klipsch would say about same.

My recommendation to beginner audiophiles coming to this forum for advice. IMHO, your audio system quality is 99.9% about speakers, their placement, and room acoustics. And if you’re considering Klipsch speakers, you’ve made a great choice. They’re efficient (so you can use a cheap, modest-powered amplifier) dynamic, accurate, and durable. But the audible differences made by rest of your components, including amplifier cd player, DAC, cables/ power cords, power conditioner, etc.. are negligible. So negligible, in fact, that there is considerable debate whether they are audible at all. There was once a $10,000 reward offered to any golden eared audiophile who could consistently distinguish b/w two S/S amplifiers. No one claimed the prize. So keep this in mind when deciding how to apportion your funds across all pieces of your system. Yes, people offer strong, highly opinionated anecdotal accounts here of how they changed X, then heard Y, but credible, empirical evidence that these differences were not merely the result of expectation bias is sparse at best. Put another way, just how relevant could such differences be if there is ANY debate at all about their existence? If they were audible and they mattered they surely would be plain to the ear of every (non-hearing impaired) music lover. That said, there are still good reasons to be selective about gear. Chose what offers the features you want (for me that meant tone controls, mono switch, wattage meters) and the look/ build-quality you want. But set aside any notions that you must go about choosing amplifiers, cables, cd players, etc. the way a wine connoisseur goes about choosing wine, with the audio salesman playing role of trusted sommelier. some links worth perusing: http://ethanwiner.com/audiophoolery.html http://tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/

As I've said before, the disinterest in bias-controlled listening trials in this hobby is disappointing. I thoroughly believe PWK would gasp (or point to his BS button) at the suggestion that there are audible differences b/w speaker cables of suitable gauge .

Do this... and decide for yourself: Buy pricey cables from a seller who has a return policy. Now, hook one of them to one channel on your pre-amp (receiver, whatever), then your current cable to the other. Now, push your speakers close together (ie., almost touching), then play music with either your mono button pushed, or (if you don't have one) play a mono recording. Use your balance control to switch b/w the speakers. Here a difference? Even better, have a friend hook up the cable without you knowing which is hooked to which channel. Again, use balance control to switch b/w channels. Do you hear a difference?? Please report back your results. Also, I recommend reading this: http://ethanwiner.com/audiophoolery.html

I would not be satisfied w/ any sort of repair. ..I would insist on replacement of both speakers. ...When we spend the kinda money we do on audio gear, the stuff needs to be absolutely perfect. ..No nicks, mars, scratches, etc. I'm sure Klipsch will comply (they did for me, anyway). If I have one complaint about klipsch it's that their packaging - based on my experience and several expressed here - is woefully inadequate. I had to go through two pairs of Cornwall III's before I finally had a perfect pair. I can only speculate that Klipsch feels the savings from using cheap packaging is greater than the cost of replacing the X% of speakers that arrive damaged. What this calculation fails to capture, however, is that it's an aggravation to their customers; customers who may not come back the next time they buy gear.

One more thing to consider with the sixes: The included cord that joins the two speakers uses proprietary connectors and is (I believe) less than 10ft long. This can be problematic if you ever need a longer cord to, for example, route across a door way or tuck behind furniture, etc.. Also, if the cable gets damaged, it will be way harder finding the correct connectors than it is to find banana plugs. ..You can't even use just stripped wire like you can with passive speaker setup. Again, they probably sound great. ..Just know that serviceability after a few years is going to be either a hassle, or non-existent.

You're right of course. ..As for connecting two, I think I'd pursue other options. To the OP, my warnings about serviceability aside I do believe the Sixes are beautiful!! ..They look fabulous and probably sound great! ..And compared to my Marshall Woburn, which was $549, I'd say the Sixes at $150 more, are probably a better value. I'm just saying that before you buy, understand that you're getting something that probably cannot be cost-effectively serviced. I'll bet Klipsch doesn't even repair most of the returned units during the Warranty period - my hunch is they simply replace them. Probably true of the Woburn too. ..If years long service is a MUST, I personally think a standalone amp + separate speakers is a better play.

I actually have a Marshall Woburn. I received it as a Christmas gift a few years ago. ..It looks great, and can play incredibly loud w/out distorting. But it's imaging is basically non-existent. AND, if you read the reviews on Amazon, you'll see a fair number of gripes about the internal bluetooth receiver or amp going bad. When that happens, it becomes a huge hassle shipping it somewhere for service. Mine, thankfully, has not had any issues. I have it hooked to an Apple airport express (for iTunes streaming) and a Logitech Touch (for Pandora, XM, etc..)

I totally understand your concern about long-time serviceability. ..As I see it, by integrating these inexpensive amps into a speaker you make what is usually the MOST reliable part of an Audio system and turn it into the least AND obligate yourself to shipping the whole speaker in for servicing should a problem arise. Honestly, I struggle to understand the convenience advantage of the Sixes over, say, one of Klipsch's passive speakers matched w/ any of the sub $100 mini-sized amps one can buy at PartsXpress or on Amazon - any of which is probably on par quality-wise with what's built into the Sixes. ..Many of these standalone amps are bluetooth equipped and/or have an extra input so you can connect your own wireless adapter. Some are barely bigger than a deck of cards, and have signal sensing auto off/on so they can be tucked behind one of the speakers, never to be seen again unless a problem arises. ..And if one does, just toss the cheapy amp and buy another. By going with an active speaker you still have to get a power cord to the powered speaker, then a wire to the other speaker, so just how much is clutter really reduced by the Sixes?

Not looking to be the neighborhood cop here but isn’t it a bit tacky to come to a manufacturers website seeking help to copy their products ?