Parrot Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 I mean, you wouldn't play Joan Baez at the same levels you might normally play Black Sabbath. That's all. I wouldn't, you wouldn't, but in reading what Mark said about Mahler, I think he would indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 Jeff-- I'll take a guess that everyone who owns a cheap high powered amp believes it has great tone. There's never a debate about "MY" stuff being good, the debate is always about "YOUR" stuff being good - - right? :-) md That's pretty good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Songer Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 No. You mentioned 'realistic levels', I was just saying what I thought it meant. I mean, you wouldn't play Joan Baez at the same levels you might normally play Black Sabbath. That's all. Why on earth would anyone need a good hifi to listen to either? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Matthews Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 Jeff-- I'll take a guess that everyone who owns a cheap high powered amp believes it has great tone. There's never a debate about "MY" stuff being good, the debate is always about "YOUR" stuff being good - - right? :-) md Mark, I know you remember all the flack I took for loving my Crown. Despite all the criticisms, I took it all as just plain good fun - and I still love my Crown. I am not beyond audible proof that it really is not that good, but I'd have to hear it for myself, and I am so satisfied that I am not on a quest to go out of my way to look for a comparison. I know of at least one member that heard all the debate about high-powered SS PA amps and went and bought himself a QSC. He said it was like going to a whole new level in terms of authoritative sound. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 No. You mentioned 'realistic levels', I was just saying what I thought it meant. I mean, you wouldn't play Joan Baez at the same levels you might normally play Black Sabbath. That's all. Why on earth would anyone need a good hifi to listen to either? That was uncalled for. How would you like it if anyone had ever criticized jazz here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Matthews Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 Jazz sucks, except for the jazz that sounds like rock and roll. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Matthews Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 But what else are we going to fight about? [:S] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fini Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 I'm just thinking it's a good idea you don't test for "grain" by listening to Tom Waits... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike stehr Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 "I went to the pizza parlour last night and sae a guy eating pizza with pineapples on it. I almost barfed. There's just no accounting for the variety of taste. Thank GOD all who go to pizza parlours aren't required to have pineapple!" I remember in the early '90's I was between places and a guy named Al let me stay at his pad for awhile. We worked at the same place. It was payday, half-starved, we ordered Dominos. At this point I'm really hungry, any sort of food would of worked. I'm about to dive into this pepperoni pizza, and out comes fat Albert with a good half quart of mayonaise piled on top of his. I just set my pizza down and left......... I guess you can say food is like audio and music, tastes can be pretty diverse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 The reason high powered amps (or mass produced amps) often lack great tone is pretty basic. Pick a price point - any price point. Let's say $2,000. It doesn't matter. Now have your designers build a bunch of 200W analog amps for $2000 and build a bunch of <20W analog amps for $2,000. What will you discover? 1. You will see that the first category of high powered amps will need a lot of the cost placed in heat and power management. Big heavy heatsinks, transformers, caps, heavy current switches and so on. It's unavoidable physics - you have to have all that heat and power under control - and that costs MONEY. When that money is spent, it can't also be spent on better sounding capacitors, or perhaps better sounding output devices, or other sonic frills. Open your megawatt amp and count the number of audio-quality caps - that might cost $25 a piece - and then count the number of generic caps that cost about 5-cents a piece. You're likely to find none of the former and a boatload of the latter. So, now you might want to convince yourself that such things as coupling caps make no difference. That's cool. But the designer traded tone for power. 2. You'll see the megawatt amp has lots and lots of output devices - -maybe 12 or 24 or even more. The production tolerances on those devices are wild - taming all those animals will require a lot of circuitry --- and almost always a lot of feedback. Again, tone has been traded for power. 3. Now open the lower powered amp. Since heat and power are not hard to deal with at under 10W, it doesn't soak up all the cost. You will USUALLY (not always) see better parts, and fewer of them. Fewer active devices is going to generally be a good thing in any analog amplifier. A 2 stage amplifier will almost assuredly sound more clear than a five stage amplifier. And, you may need no feedback to tame this simple circuit unlike the massive feedback used in big amps. You might see one or at most two output devices. One needs NO BALANCING, and two can easily be balanced. 20 is another matter all together! In this amplifier, the designer has traded power for tone. He is MORE likely to experiment with tone adjustments in the design because the design is SO DAMN SIMPLE it allows this experimentation. These are just general examples, not rules. Exceptions abound. But, this is why the audiophile amplifier community still exists! How on earth could they ever compete with Sony or Denon who could produce amplifier watts all day long at a hard cost of say 10-cents a watt? The only way to compete is to do what they can't do - concentrate on tone. Of course, there are audiophile BIG AMPS too that sell for whatever - $50,000 grand or so. There, they take BOTH approaches. Results vary. But I have never met a designer yet who didn't fully acknowledge that designing a great sounding high power amp was a heck of a lot harder (or costlier) than a low powered one. It's simple physics and economics. There are no free lunches out there. md Come on lets stay on track or simply give this subject up. Who cares about mass produced gear?? How many folks on the 2 channel forum use that stuff........ very few. Most of the lower wattage amps actually cost more then the higher powered counterparts when your talking tube amps. Which in reality is the amplifier type most of us are referring to here. The cost of the production of a high quality audiophile amplifier or any other audiophile component rarely has anything to do with the retail price. So in reality production cost is not a valid point. Lower powered amps are no better able to deliver "tone" than a high power amplifier and that is a fact. Craig Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 but the amp....shouldn't that be as close as it can be to straight wire with gain? Thoughts? "Straight wire with gain" is only ideal when the source and speakers are perfect... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 Okay, to summarize then, if you can afford it, buy a 20W or more amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hardhead Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 Excellent discussion, gentlemen! I think you've covered pretty much all the possible points of view again. In fact, I think I enjoyed this series of essays at least as much as I've enjoyed any of the previous few hundred threads on the same subject. I do appreciate your dedication to reproducing these arguments for the rest of us to read again, because I know how expensive it is to do so, not only in the considerable time consumed in preparing these responses, but also in bandwidth used and the intellectual capacity necessary to recreate these arguments. Thank you again. All those you have changed their minds on amp design, low/high power, etc. because of this discussion, please raise their hands. Next can we have the one about all the reasons my wire is better than your wire? I haven't heard that one lately, and I really love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 There is no free lunch. Something's gotta give. Power is not free and good tone is not free. Nothing is free. You get whatever you pay for. So many audio equipment reviews have a line like, "To better this $1000 amp you'd have to spend three times as much," that it's become a running gag. Almost everything reviewed is compared favorably to something that costs much more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meagain Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 If a lower powered amp sounds nice, then it "must" be able to do bass well (IMO). If it can't give me "thumpity thump" at a higher volume (or any volume other than low, for that matter) - then it wouldn't "sound nice" to me. Can a low powered amp go thumpity thump or not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOSValves Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 Well lets take it one by one. Yea lets do that........ 1. Come on lets stay on track or simply give this subject upA: You can stop participating at any time. Just like anyone else in any other thread. B: I will post whenever and wherever I please, thank you very much[]2. Who cares about mass produced gear?? A: I would guess everyone using McIntosh, Crown, Sonic Impact, QSC, Pioneer, Scott, Fisher, Dynaco, Marantz, Acurus, Adcom, Carver, Sunfire, Aragon, and well, maybe another dozen brands I see on this site. They might care. B: I would hardly consider some of the gear listed above as being mass produced and many of them are hardly considered audiophile component manufacturers. Heck, a good number of them have not been in business for the last 30 years!! 3. How many folks on the 2 channel forum use that stuff........ very few.A: I dont know the exact number, but it looks high based on my scanning of the sigs and the above list of brands that are very popular. Looks to me to be more than a few. B: Well you're seeing different signatures than I am. Also see my reply above.4. Most of the lower wattage amps actually cost more then the higher powered counterparts when your talking tube amps. Which in reality is the amplifier type most of us are referring to here. A: Some cost more, some cost less. Those Mac amps aint cheap. However, my point was keeping the price constant for the two kinds of amps - thats the analysis I was making, for the points I wanted to make. Youre free to make other analysis, or other points. B: I am making my points. Yup some cost more and some cost less this would be a pretty good example the the nutty way this industry prices products. McIntosh would be a classic example of products priced for many reasons beyond the actual hard cost to produce the product. Much of what you pay for modern McIntosh is for the name. I'm not saying it's not great gear, I'm just stating a hard cold fact. Heck even buying the vintage MC stuff, much of what you are paying for is the name/rarity and has nothing to do with hard production value. Many of the companies you're mentioning also have huge costs in marketing and selling of the product. I would venture to say in some cases it nearly equals the cost to produce the product. 5. The cost of the production of a high quality audiophile amplifier or any other audiophile component rarely has anything to do with the retail price. So in reality production cost is not a valid point.A: Ok, thats your opinion. Good enough. But, I dont agree that cost rarely has anything to do with retail price. I have some, but not unlimited experience. I can tell you that at Paragon price was related to our cost. At ADC a rather larger company, price was also related to cost. At DBX an even larger company, price was also related to cost. And at BSR an even much, much larger company price was related to cost. And finally, at JMA price is related to cost. Thats at least a smattering of actual experience.Now different companies will relate cost to price in different ways, but to deny a connection isnt my experience in the industry. Its quite rare for an amplifier with a $950 cost to be sold for $1050, and its equally rare for an amplifier with a $40 cost to be sold for $2,000. Not impossible, but rare. Particularly in the mass-produced market the competition occurs at every price point imaginable. There is intense competition for a $300 amp, a $700 amp, a $1,000 amp, $2,000 and right up the scale. At each price point you will find more cost put into the unit in order to provide more utility to the buyer. Its rare for a company to produce a series of amps with increasing price and all having the same cost.B: Again what does mass produced products have to do with this discussion. I don't get it. Also I don't see where cost is a real issue. When it comes right down to it the cost to build a quality 40 watt tube amp is not much different than building a quality 10 watter. I mean what are we talking about a 20% difference big deal. Paragon was a long lasting money making adventure wasn't it?? ADC, DBX and BSR would hardly be considered audiophile IMHO. These are indeed large mass producing monsters that have little to do with the subject at hand if you ask me. My entire point in my original post that I entered this discussion was that the power of a given amplifier has nothing to do with whether it has nice pleasing "tone" or not. Why you went off on this tangent I have no clue. Diversionary tactic maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coda Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 Okay, to summarize then, What this country needs is a good five-watt* amplifier. *but if you can afford it, buy a 20W or more amp good try . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coda Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 The American Standards Association defines timbre as "[...] that attribute of sensation in terms of which a listener can judge that two sounds having the same loudness and pitch are dissimilar". A note to the 1960 definition (p.45) adds that "timbre depends primarily upon the spectrum of the stimulus, but it also depends upon the waveform, the sound pressure, the frequency location of the spectrum, and the temporal characteristics of the stimulus." Just a hunch on a relationship between waveform integrity and timbre (tone quality). Perhaps someone can better explain the effects of waveform integrity and topology, or confirm if what can be heard can also be measured. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 What this country needs is a good five-watt* amplifier. Meaning, of course, that there isn't a good five-watt amplifier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted December 1, 2006 Share Posted December 1, 2006 Since finding the right target audience is important, my suggestion for advertising a 1.5W SET amp: "The XYZ SET amp: For when you want your Mahler no louder than Joan Baez." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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