Lets talk Amps

[joshnich]

There are plenty of good Class A/B amplifiers that sound exceptional with Klipsch speakers. This is an entertainment hobby and if it pleases you be buy one and be happy. But that being said it is a fact that the most linear of all classes is Class A. All A/B amplifiers have crossover distortion that has to be dealt with in some manner to sound decent. Single ended Class A does not have this to begin with. Some designers throw many components and circuits to cancel this crossover distortion others bias the A/B amplifier higher. Class A amplifiers whether tube or transistor are not for every speaker because of their limited wattage without getting very expensive. Klipsch speakers are made for Class A because of their efficiency. A well designed Class A/B amplifier will sound better than a poorly designed A. I personally would not buy an expensive A/B amplifier with a highly efficient speaker when I could buy a good quality Class A for the same price. If I had speakers that needed 100 watts I would definitely buy an quality Class A/B amplifier. I have owned many, many amplifiers and nothing has sound as good with my speakers as the worst Class A amplifier I have owned. Do your research on amplifier designs and they will substantiate my comments of the most linear of all designs, Class A.

You make it sound as if folks here haven't done any research on amplification topology. I can assure you that is not the case. I admit that I am not nearly as technical as some on this forum but I have done a significant amount of research on amplifier topology. I in fact owned class A tube amps and class A solid state amps. I would encourage you to do some research on THX 's Achromatic Audio Amplification technology as well as Benchmarks feed forward error correction approach.

I know from professional experience that it is hard for people to change their minds, in fact it's virtually impossible regardless of the evidence and facts presented - so I dont have much confidence that I will change yours. I just hope that with a little research you might find a smaller horse

I see that your horse is bigger than mine. I was trying to be nice to you saying "There are plenty of good Class A/B amplifiers that sound exceptional with Klipsch speakers."  but you seem to just want to say my Chevrolet is better than my Ford. My apologies again if you are offended in any way by my comments which are fact about Class A not judgmental statements.  We can both keep this up but it serves no purpose. I know that there are lots of members here that know amplification technology more than I know then there are younger members that are not interested in electronics but just want the best sound. I thought forums are where people can learn but you want to say just buy my amp it is the best, do not look anywhere else. You may be well respected on this forum but your comment about "my horse" is not in good taste in my opinion. Maybe no one on this forum needs any information about Class A amplification and I am out of line even writing anything about it.

Your response is somewhat comical. I will leave it to anyone that is interested to look back an judge for themselves who is boasting about the size of their amp (Btw yours must be microscopic)

My point is that as a diehard tube lover and an owner of many fine examples of class A and Class A/B topology, I found new technology that I prefer. You suggested that people need to do research in order to understand why your perspective is worthy. Fine. But while you are spewing your pov, take the time to do research on the alternative perspective.

For the record I never told anyone to buy anything-I only suggested that I am excited about other options that should be considered. I e been around these parts for long enough for folks to know that I don't make this stuff up. Hopefully some with open minds might consider or explore alternatives that do not fall within your limited universe

[djk]

"I understand that Pass has an article on biasing on his web site with formula for determining class A output."

 

No kidding, I quoted it.

 

"Push-pull circuitry more or less doubles the efficiency of a class A output stage (Fig. 4c) because unlike the constant current sourced design, its idle current need be only one half the peak output current," (Nelson Pass)

[willland]

All I know is that my Acurus amps sound wonderful with my RF-63's, RC-64, and RS-35's.  As a matter of fact, they sound great with all Klipsch speakers I have ever owned.

 

Acurus may not be class A but they are very well all discrete designed class AB with quality parts.  IMO, serious performance bargains.

 

 

A200

 

 

 

Bill

[Bubo]

 

Members, I do not plan to respond to any more derogatory comments from joshnich. I think he has shown his true character and personality and I do not plan on keeping this going with him. I have never seen a forum without at lest one member like joshnich that has nothing to offer but personal attacks on someone that disagrees with him.

 

 

 

I think it was Twain that had something to say about this......

[Max2]

Alright, everyone is cool here.  Lets keep things going.  I know didly about amp topo's compared to the amp gurus here as the first post in this thread shows.....yet I can ask questions that can't be answered.  If there was a a perfect amp for every speaker and every ear we would likely all own it.  Is it all about the low THD numbers, noise floor, damping etc, etc?   I would say over 90% of the amp people would say no. However, is it a coincidence that most upper SS amps regardless of class really boast extremely good numbers across the board for sound or just for the white paper and to keep up with their leading competitors specs? Are number actually bad?   We want less distortion using horn loaded bass cabs and its an improvement, we want bigger, better drivers that give a cleaner sound with better clarity, we also want current crossovers with new and better caps unless you're active of course. So are the cleanest of these top SS amps losing the "sound" going for accuracy, total blackness in pauses with the music content and basically no distortion? Is the negative feedback killing the sound securing the crazy good bench numbers?  What about these people that want total accuracy, no tone exaggeration, accurate bass  and just try to recreate exactly what is there, totally flat?  I think that may be the majority here.  You can tell a lot about an amps sound hooking them up to horns, where as you would never really hear it from a non horn speaker, which makes us all experts.  

 

So what about the tube guys that are laughing in the corner knowing they have one of the best sounding midrange outputs coming out of their MC 30's or their MC225. Has the SS amp really surpassed the tube designs in sound quality? It seems everyone was really ready for it and eagerly awaiting for this new tech back in the day, but many guru's think not going back to old unity topo's with the old macs and sticking with them when they could have whatever they wanted.  What year did PWK make his "all the world needs is a good 5 watt amp" spill?  I hope he actually found it, but made that comment reaching for more improvements as he always did.   Could nostalgia and tube rolling be playing some of the part with the romance of tubes or is it a harmonic hologram that many never leave after the first taste? And what about the new crazy design like the Benchmark, boasting numbers that equal that of high end DACs, is this the future?  

 

One thing I can't do is try them all, but I can listen very closely to the people that have tried the majority and stopped or went back to what they have.  And lets face it, you can listen to anything anywhere, but until its set up in your room you will never know what you like.    Im starting to ramble here, but if I could audition 4 amps in my setup and keep one they would be  MC 30's, MC225, MC252 and the Benchmark with its matching DAC/PRE.  Im sure there are more accurate tube amp examples the guys here could mention, but if its going on my shelf and have tubes its gonna be a MAC ....whoa wait, I think I just expressed a little bit of nostalgia 

Edited August 12, 2015 by Max2

[tube fanatic]

Max, you have a better understanding of the issues involved in audio reproduction than many!  Congratulations!!!

Maynard

[Don Richard]

 

 

 

All A/B amplifiers have crossover distortion that has to be dealt with in some manner to sound decent.

 

 

I disagree.

 

I have tested many A/B amplifiers to full rated output and there is ZERO crossover distortion in the output. In fact that is the whole point of biasing an amp properly.

 

Just becaue one device goes into cut off doesn't mean that the output will have a notch at the zero point.

 

I would go on and say that in an AB amplifier because of the bias point the tube is usually operated in it's most non linear region which would create distortion, which feedback then just fixes.

 

So you are saying that Class A/B amplifiers do not have crossover distortion to be dealt with in some way? There are lots of tube amplifiers that do not have any feedback whatsoever because none is needed. Most, if not all A/B amplifiers have tons of feedback correction. 

 

 

EL Paso Tube has lots of great videos on Youtube, former NASA and MIL tech, probably an engineer. Anyway, he always seems to be able to zoom his scope to make the crossover visible, since it must be there. I think the argument is, how inaudible does it have to be before it's a non issue.

 

 

Crossover distortion is most audible at low levels, less audible at higher power levels. With high efficiency speakers, this type distortion is more audible than with low efficiency designs.

[joshnich]

Members, I do not plan to respond to any more derogatory comments from joshnich. I think he has shown his true character and personality and I do not plan on keeping this going with him. I have never seen a forum without at lest one member like joshnich that has nothing to offer but personal attacks on someone that disagrees with him.

I think that this d-bag has put me over the edge. Adios folks.

[oldtimer]

Max, try a sunfire made in the usa.  The specs are not the bragging point.  But it is not a space heater, and sounds great.   More off the topic, I am not sure I saw any personal attacks in this thread.  And of course if there were, snitches would have already alerted the authorities.

Edited August 21, 2015 by oldtimer

[Max2]

I guess I need to give an update as this thread came back to life. Thanks for all the ideas and I would love to slip all the amps mentioned here in my setup for a test drive.  I ended up buying a McIntosh MC 7205. Its certainly not the best sounding Mac amp out there, but it fit my bill and needs for the time being, which was a multi channel amp that had decent two channel listening capabilities. Im not going to sugar coat this, this thing is not smoky and warm like the older SS Mac models. Surprisingly it has a pretty wet sound and pronounced mid that almost comes across tubish.  Coming from a Denon 4311 AVR, which I use as a pre now, the Mac was bright, revealing and a bit clinical at first although having extreme transparency of the music.  I don't know how much it had been run as it came with all the packaging, plastic wrap, paperwork, original box, etc and I cant find one mark or scratch on it.. Yes it took a couple of weeks for me to get the wince off my face. I even went back to my AVR power after a good spell with the Mac and suddenly the AVR sounded very distant and almost muted in the content. I don't know if it smoothed out by burning in some or if my ears just adjusted, but it sounds pretty dang good now. I cant tell it has any more oomph than the pretty powerful Denon and I have romped it a time or two. About the blue meters, well they're cool, and pretty darn bright,  but I often keep them off as they seem to draw constant attention from your eyes, you just cant get them out of your peripheral vision. Do I still have the what if syndrome? Of course I do.  A dedicated two channel amp for the mains would be my next step, but at the same time, I'm pretty happy where I am at and certainly thankful for what is sitting in my rack.  Thanks for all the input friends.

[Colin]

the best amps I heard on Big Ole Horns was 1-watt! The next best was Nelson Pass' 10-watt SIT:

 

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/1212/garber_fi_x4.htm

[joshnich]

I wasn't going to post again in this thread but I couldn't resist. Enjoy the music just came up with a new award called 20 / 20 to identify the best 20 products reviewed over the past 20 years. In the amplifier category it's no surprise that pass labs was represented with the x250.8. It should also be noted that the Benchmark ahb2 was also included.

Unlike some who are convinced that new approaches cannot yield superior performers - without even listening to the product (see posts above) The reviewer was obviously impressed beyond the "advertising claims" noted in one of the previous uninformed posts.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/20_20_Awards/Enjoy_The_Music_20_20_Award_Amplification.htm

Just saying!

Josh

Edited September 28, 2015 by joshnich

[Jim Naseum]

The chase is over for the OP.

But, let's talk about amps!

Back in the mid 70s a dude up in Berkeley by the name of J. Peter Moncrief conducted a blind taste test of a dozen popular audiophile amps. Made by such companies as Audio Research, Paragon, Mark Levinson. No slouches here.

He listened using KLH 9 mains with a Klipschorn bass bin as a bottom end. All was well and properly done with level matching and switchers. The winner, and much detail was published in Sound Advice magazine, whose editors later formed Crystal Clear Records, and Reference Records in subsequent years.

Well, so what, right? Lol The so what in this story is that the winner of the taste test, which included numerous Bay Area audiophile luminaries, was the lowly (status wise) Phase Linear 400! OMG! You could hear the whining from one side of the Bay Bridge to the other. The crisis lasted about a year until a new King of Amplifiers could be duly crowned, the Electro-Companiet.

I mention this because we all became believers in blind taste testing for awhile. Amps are more like whiskey than rulers. All the amps tested could fairly be called perfect. None had greater than 0.01% distortion, let's say. But in the end the personality of one grabbed more yeses than the personality of the others. And it is worth noting that each of the dozen amps had fans who choose it as their #1 pick. Just what you would expect if sampling whiskey, right?

Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk

[muel]

Good analogy considering both can cause you to wake up with a headache in the morning

[Bubo]

I mention this because we all became believers in blind taste testing for awhile. Amps are more like whiskey than rulers. All the amps tested could fairly be called perfect. None had greater than 0.01% distortion, let's say. But in the end the personality of one grabbed more yeses than the personality of the others. And it is worth noting that each of the dozen amps had fans who choose it as their #1 pick. Just what you would expect if sampling whiskey, right?

Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk

They all have a personality

Edited September 29, 2015 by Bubo

[joshnich]

Joshnich I am glad you have not given up on this thread and I realize we do have difference of opinions which is not a bad thing if done in the right way and no I have not heard this amp. You are a long time member of this forum and you certainly have and have had very nice equipment and I respect your review of your amp. This thread would be not be as good if you did not participate. I am sorry for what has been said on my part in the heat of discussions and hope you will accept my apology and we can be at least civil. When you say it is one of the best amps you have ever heard I take note and value your opinion after seeing you selling the 45 mono blocks which are supposed to be one of the best sounding of SE tube amps made and your Belle Klipsch are gorgeous. You certainly have heard some of the best amps made.

 

Others that have had differences in opinions on this forum have apologized and moved on.  I believe we both have something to contribute to this forum in a positive way and I hope we can. I do not want to make any enemies at this time in my life and I feel bad about what I have said. Again I apologize.  Sincerely William.

Thank you William,

For the record I have the utmost respect for Nelson Pass and have in fact owned amps designed by him and auditioned others designed by him. I was as shocked as anyone could be with the performance of this amp. Having owned and loved class A amps I was not only devoted to class A, but to tube class A. I never thought that a solid state non class a amp could deliver close to my expectations. This product changed my mind and as most know, a mind is a hard thing to change!

I have been more than impressed with your knowledge of circuits and your ability to build them. And although most of what you post about is over my head , I have learned a great deal from your posts. I look forward to reading more of them. I apologize for my over reaction. I look forward to many more civil exchanges - at least in the areas that I have some experience!

Best

Josh