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Bozak 919 Pre/929 Amp

So then the same as every other piece of audio gear? Because if I had a dime for how many times I've read "[X] sounds better than similar products costing hundreds/thousands more!" I could be like Scrooge McDuck and take a dive into it. So either that is implying that amps sound so close to each other so as to make spending lots on equipment meaningless (very likely) or that there's just so gosh darn many cheap amps that sound better than expensive ones (This seems like wishful thinking - like buying a cheap new car and pretending it's even better than the luxury or performance offerings). There's a tradeoff that's associated every time you go with the cheap option over the one that costs more. It's very rare for something to be both cheap and great, maybe 1:100.

I've said it before so there's not much need to really go into it again. I'm just going to have to laugh and say, "uh uh" to Bozak sounding better than legitimate home audio gear. But hey, some people use a Jeep Wrangler as a family vehicle despite the fact it's pretty ugly and is supposed to serve a particular purpose (off-roading). On a grander scale, I bet that asking a large number of audiophiles would show the majority of people would scoff at the Bozak stuff. Not trying to hide behind majority rule, but I doubt really that many people would find it to perform better than a similar home audio amp. But like using the Wrangler as a family vehicle - you can totally do whatever you want with it. It's just some uses are more silly than others, but none of them are really wrong per-se.
 
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Vistance, at what point did you decide they were NOT home audio amps? I know I started that line of thought, but as I said before, I only brought up the profesional line of amps because I suspected they were SIMILAR enough to allow a tech to use the pro line manuals to service the 929. AFAIK, the 900 series was ONLY made for the home audio market.

You've made your anti pro-audio bias very clear, and you are not alone, but in this case, you are damning a model specifically made for home use. Like many of the brands brought up in this thread, by yourself, as well as others, Bozak made BOTH commercial, and home audio electronics. You sited McIntosh, and Accuphase as acceptable high end brands for home audio, but they too made commercial electronics.
I just don't get why you fixate so much against a brand (that you have ZERO personal experience with) that happens to sell to two markets. If you think selling amps to pros somehow taints the brand, then why the double standard? Why not just exclude ALL brands that have been sold for professional use?
 
We were selling the pair in my stores in '73 when I sold them and had been selling them for some 3 years so, the Blue Book is wrong, not unusual.

Vistance, I never noticed you or your writings before. Sounds like from your message #55 you are a flipper. As for your message #61, it is apparent you know little or nothing about Bozak as a brand, its divisions or product. It maybe that your knowledge and experience is in the sound reinforcement part of the industry as it seems you know nil about the home side of the industry; especially when it come to Bozak. Many of Bozak's electronic products were designed by CM Labs that excelled in both home audio and a few professional products. The 919 and 929 were 2 of the CM Labs home audio dedicated designs. The 929 was stable enough and cost efficient that a number were used in professional applications. IT NOR THE 929 WERE DESIGNED AS, MARKETED AS OR INTENDED FOR THE PROFESSIONAL MARKET.

As for your contention that a "cheap", I assume you actually mean "inexpensive" as they are 2 different things but sadly interchanged in error can not sound better than a more expensive amp or 2 amps can not sound the same; sorry Charlie but both contentions are about as wrong as it gets. There is no correlation between automobiles and amps. Has to be as silly an analogy as I have heard in that regard. Price vs quality depends on many factors including what a company looks for in bottom line numbers, reliability resulting in lower warranty costs, different warranty periods, market channel, and many other things. A company like db Systems and Audio by Van Alstine products do direct sales, have small production runs or custom build, do not do complex designs and have like old Sherwood developed reliable circuits and rather than recreating the world just continually improve these designs. Marketing costs are nil, etc. Their products are universally recognized as competitive and better than many costing many multiples of mass marketed commercial product. Kloss disproved you hypothesis with most of the products he was associated with during his years at KLH and Advent including the electronics and speakers.

As for asking persons their opinion as to Bozak, it may be fair provided the persons asked also said they had experienced Bozaks in a home environment. I remember when there were many weighing in against McIntosh some years ago until the question was asked of those knocking the product under what conditions did they hear the products and did they ever own any. It was amazing how quickly the knocking of their product dropped off and many person knocking it admitted they had never heard any but were parroting others, had decided based an opinion of some sales person in a store that did not carry the marque, or heard it in some sound room full of speakers and through some switch box, something any person knowing anything about Mc ot tube units with transformer or autoformer outputs will tell you is as big a no-no as possible.

So, as I was the person who first asked the question regarding McIntosh, I'll pose the same question to you. What Bozak products have you owned and how used? If the answer is none, where and under what conditions did you hear specifically the 919 and/or the 929 and with what associated equipment and what was it compared to if a comparison was made during the time.

Sorry to be so blunt and abrupt. Most here know I am a might more political in my comments but, your comments are so off the wall, I could find no nice way to respond.

In full disclosure, I was a Bozak home audio dealer, had a 919 and 929 at home for evaluation when they were introduced to determine if they should be in my stores' product mix and they were determined to be included, a decision that was made by the sales staff as well as myself and my tech as it had to be reliable, sound good and be marketable as well and better than an existing that they would competing product in our offerings. From memory they replaced the Citation 11 and 12 that had displaced the Crown IC150 and DC150 As Bozak was close to our Ct. store, I was a frequent visitor. The quality of their construction and quality control was easily equal to McIntosh, though the product not as fancily packaged. More recently have used stock Symphonys in my main system and have owned 302a's for some 25 years or so so, do have a bit of experience with Bozak.
 
Do you need to drive a Yugo to know it's a terrible car? I'm using an extreme example, but I think some amps don't need to be heard to make a decision about them. There are some things I would never own just because of what they are. If you can be that unbiased good on you, but I personally have some brands of audio equipment I don't ever care to own and would never even listen or feel the need to to arrive at the decision. Some people love Kia cars, I would never even sit in one - wouldn't be happy with it. Some things can be considered a foregone conclusion, so why even make the comparison when your own preferences will bias the decision to the result you wanted anyway? The brands I dislike I've had generally negative experience with and thus would never spend real money on or have a desire to own again.

To that end, I don't really like Bozak. Sorry, just don't. I'm not going to start just naming off brands here, but I've got several I just do not like. I'm a flipper only in the sense that I sell stuff if I buy it and end up not liking it, rather than starting a collection like some people and I actively weigh what I could get for something before I buy it so as not to waste my money trying stuff I'll lose lots of money on. I try not to pay going price for stuff since people local to me won't ever pay it either. The car metaphor I made was a simple likeness, some people use stuff for uses that are really suboptimal considering their original intent. There are some people who love HPM-100's, but I hated them. To go back to the previous point, I don't need to listen to every speaker designed similarly to the HPM-100's just to find out if I like them or not. That's a great example of good build quality, terrible sound quality.

I've considered this idea of "value" that some purported "high-end" audio companies claim to offer, but I'm starting to think that's just more snake oil for the mind of the consumer. Just throw in some technical fluff words, talk about some engineering design that "improves" the sound 1% and isn't even audible to convince the consumer your product is way better. For so many of these companies that just keep springing up, all they are is a line of marketing hype. Much like people who prefer vintage over modern for some mythical increased reliability and build quality (read: made of metal, glass, and wood instead of plastic), this is what sells a lot of people on these newer unknown amps. The modern equivalent are these companies that are unheard of by mainstream audiophile standards (and that's a fair bit obscure to start off). Some people feel more comfortable wasting lots of money for purported better sound quality even if they don't hear it, or rather they make themselves hear something that isn't there. Put the internals of a cheap plastic AVR into the body of a high-end looking amplifier and I'll guarantee you'll see gushing reviews of the sound quality...I think a lot of people want to be able to mentally know "This brand is elite, superior than the others, the best around" and by thinking this they convince themselves the sound they hear is the best there is and thus they feel justified in spending their money (Even though the amp wouldn't sound any different than a much cheaper unit that's still built well - like Emotiva). I forget where it was, but there was an article where some audio reviewers raved over the sound of a Theta digital CD player and later on someone took it apart and found out it's the same internally as a really cheap CD player.

I've deviated from the original point here, but what I'm getting at here is to a large degree I don't think for newer amps there's much difference - they all sound good. I thought about going crazy and buying one of those $800-1000 used amps on audiogon but then realized, what made one any better than another? The looks. That's about it. When you throw in vintage to this, now you have reliability as a serious concern. I don't like vintage gear because so much of it is broken or has issues, but the people selling them could care less when they give their pricing. Why should I pay $400 for an old amp that will cost me $400 to have serviced to be just like new when I could probably buy a used newer amplifier that's maybe a few years old and be no worse off - and have something that actually looks good too? Again, maybe the appeal of looking like it should be in a rolling equipment rack is appealing to some but I really don't care for it. The more I've thought of it, the more the Bozak stuff just looks ugly to me.

The difference I'll say about pro vs. home that you're failing to recognize is what does the company MOSTLY produce. Crown is mostly pro audio. I wouldn't ever buy a Crown amp. Never. It would be like if Mack truck suddenly made a car, after 98% of what they make is big rigs and commercial trucks. They're great at what they do, but I wouldn't place a lot of confidence in their ability to make stuff outside what they were known for. Nakamichi tried to branch out, but what are they known for? Tape decks. Their well known amps were just borrowed tech from Threshold - so while good, they weren't really designed by them. To this end I'd say most of McIntosh and Accuphase gear is made for home use. Yeah, Bryston for example is known for making a lot of pro audio stuff - and that's why they're off my list of brands I'd really consider. Some brands are more 50/50 split like that, and I don't care for them.

But to just get down to it, I highly question the value of spending a lot of money on amps. They really don't make that much of a difference unless you're using a special kind of speaker. My cheap SMSL T-Amp sounded the same as purportedly superior sounding Marantz 2220b and 2215b. Big difference being it just has a volume knob and a single input. But it was also like $40. My daily unit is an Integra AVR and a Denon AVR. Neither were cheap, both sound great. I trust the internal build of my AVRs more than I would something like the Bozak. The Bozak just looks like an old lab amplifier in ways. Not particularly appealing at all. So what I'm getting at here is that a lot of the "difference" in audio gear is the looks. It's why people blow loads of money on Pioneer SX receivers when personally I don't think they sound any better than any other old receiver - they're just overbuilt and really big and beefy looking. There's really nothing wrong with that, but I think a lot of audiophile stuff is just hearing what you want to hear.

I'll spend all my money on speakers, headphones, and subwoofers - that's where you hear the difference. Not amplifiers. Not preamps. Not the kind of interconnects or speaker wire you use. Unless you use a really cheap terrible amplifier to drive some 4 ohm speakers really loud - then you'll have some nasty results mostly because the amp is clipping and unable to drive the speakers. I won't lie, I might buy a nicer power amp and preamp to replace one of my AVR setups - but it will largely be for aesthetic reasons.
 
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Do me a favor, and avoid the automotive analogies. I have no idea your age, or background, but I'll give you a quick outline of mine.
I've been in the automotive field for over 35yrs, starting as a Lancia,Fiat & Ferrari mechanic, and then owning a couple restoration shops before becoming Jack Roush's personal mechanic, and head of Roush Racing's "Special Projects" dep. For the last 20+ yrs, I've worked in prototype development. I've owned Ferraris, Maseraties, Lancias, Fiats, Saabs, Matras, Tatras, Jaguars, and a few others you likely haven't even heard of. Currently, I have a '75 Lotus Elite, '78 Esprit, and a '69 Jaguar XK-E in the garage. I've been complemented on my high performance driving skills by Mark Martin, Jack Roush, and Bob Lutz to name a few. Let's just say, "I'm a car guy".

An overly long boast, I know, but I wanted you to have some Idea where I'm coming from when I tell you... I've owned a couple Yugos (basically, just Fiat 128s in case you care), and 5 Kias since 2000, with two ( a Cinco & Rondo) sitting in my drive way as I write this! To dismiss a car that you haven't driven is absurd, and the kind of thinking that allowed the American auto industry to fall so far behind several years ago. Luckily, they've learned not to ignore competitors. They learned the lesson late, but it looks like just in time. I can only hope you learn to open your eyes, and mind a bit as well.

In short, I don't think you have a clue what you're talking about in the automotive field, so PLEASE refrain from any more insipid car analogies!
 
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I don't study up on audio terminology or pretend to have knowledge of the fluff words usually thrown around when describing sound. The car analogies are used in generic because they help me better describe something. I'd still say what I said was accurate. Everyone is going to forever associate the Yugo with cheap and unreliable. I chose it specifically to avoid a backlash from picking a more contemporary example which would make people especially divisive (Though trust me, I could easily pick a few contemporary examples which I utterly despise - and I have enough history and experience to be well founded in that belief).

Now the bit about personal preference that I tossed in is just for me. Not to keep it going off-topic but I wouldn't buy any American car except perhaps a Corvette. Cheap build quality, lack the kind of features I want, reliability of some brands and models are extremely questionable, performance is rarely a concern, handling is usually poor. At this point in my life, I fully support Japanese automakers and would strongly prefer them over alternatives from anyone else. FWIW, I wouldn't ever sit in a Hyundai either. I highly dislike Kia and Hyundai's marketing and what they do to sell their shoddy cars, whom I have known so many people who complained of poor reliability as well as general social stigma of driving them. I don't know what possible benefit they could offer other than low price, and at that - I'd rather pay more for a better car, used or new. 100k/10 year warranty doesn't mean anything when you're servicing the car constantly - and I expect a car to last 200k+ these days since my previous vehicles have done so with almost no issues.

I don't like most new cars these days though. CVTs are horrible, engines have gotten to be humdrum in most models, styling looks hideous. Can't believe how much people pay for some of these awful looking new cars.
 
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Frommerstop, you are right, the boy don't know nothing about cars, except maybe what he has read in Consumers Report or off some biased blog.

Having grown up in the auto parts industry, I have a slightly different view point though I too raced as a kid little go karts called Corvair Corvair Spyder, Mini Coopers, SAABs, Jags and, a Citreon SM. Admittedly, never into muscle cars. As for handling, give me a Checker any day.
 
Actually, I was only half joking. I had a Marathon wagon and it was the most comfortable long distance driver I ever owned. I could easily drive 30+ hours nonstop and never have a hint of tired back. Drove it up and down Mt. Washington and time was a good as the Jag XJ6 I had. Not a Mini Coopers around curves but far above the '65 Caprice, '72 Tornado, any of the Lincolns and numerous other cars. Funniest to see it in an ice race I entered it in one year. A load of SAABs, Subarus, Beetles and so on and then this hulk Checker going around in circles and a few donuts before it was fashionable to do those.
 
I've always had a soft spot for Checkers, one of my old room mates had a Marathon. We had quite a bit of fun in that car. You're right, they were comfortable cruisers, but I disagree about them riding as well as an XJ-6. IMO, the XJ-6/12 were some of the best riding cars of the 20th century... I even preferred my XJ-12L to my Silver Shadow! Still, Checkers are cool, and no one can say they weren't built well!

You should check out the Gilmore Museum, just outside Kalamazoo... they have quite a Checker collection.
 
this thread has turned into an overly opinionated, one sided rant. i have owned more gear than i can even recollect. sound is a case by case, person to person opinion. not all that glitters of chrome and green lights sounds like the heavens opened up. i have owned Levinson ( over-priced, ok sounding ), Mcintosh ( tube equipment is sub-par except for the 225, solid state preamps are a case by case). case in point, if you want a stereo that has a light show and more chrome than a 1957 chevy, than buy that. Not all new amplifiers are AWESOME. the Bozak 919 probably would have faired better without slide controls, but when cleaned up is incredibly accurate, quiet and IMHO rivals many more expensive units.
 
Brian said:
Frommerstop, you are right, the boy don't know nothing about cars, except maybe what he has read in Consumers Report or off some biased blog.
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Thanks for the compliments, I decide what I want based on a multitude of sources - this thankfully means a few people stuck on the glory days of "cars used to be great" don't taint the reality of what cars are good. Consumer Report is the most useless publication ever created, completely full of reviews based on who pays best. I read absolutely no publications about cars, they're all full of inaccuracies.

I have no desire to work on cars, it's not fun in the slightest. Someone would have to be mental to want to do that. I'll take programming any day of the week. As far as cars go, I'll stick with Japanese auto makers. European vehicles might have some better handling/performance at times but their costs are outrageous and I've never seen a reliable one save for Volvo (And not much performance there to be fair).

vinylisfinal said:
this thread has turned into an overly opinionated, one sided rant. i have owned more gear than i can even recollect. sound is a case by case, person to person opinion. not all that glitters of chrome and green lights sounds like the heavens opened up. i have owned Levinson ( over-priced, ok sounding ), Mcintosh ( tube equipment is sub-par except for the 225, solid state preamps are a case by case). case in point, if you want a stereo that has a light show and more chrome than a 1957 chevy, than buy that. Not all new amplifiers are AWESOME. the Bozak 919 probably would have faired better without slide controls, but when cleaned up is incredibly accurate, quiet and IMHO rivals many more expensive units.
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I said before, all amps sound basically similar. Hardly a difference between them as people purport. Cosmetics is the largest difference between most. Based on everything I've ever heard, I'd say if I compared a McIntosh to say my NAD C270 power amp I'm not sure they wouldn't sound arguably no different. Except the NAD looks boring and plain, McIntosh is fancy with the glass, lights, etc. I didn't say they were necessarily any better (since I don't think any amps really are) than anything else, just cosmetics look nice. Not the end all of looks though. I still like a big Accuphase power amp most of all. It's easy for everything to rival more expensive units because the ugly truth is nothing sounds that different from each other.

But I'm sure this will come across as "You're not an audiophile then, go buy some cheap crap from Best Buy." or something along those lines. All I'll say is the speakers are the most important element, and anyone truly concerned with better sound will go there. Buy the equipment based on the looks and what offers the features you want. Simple as that.
 
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Vistance- been enjoying my freshly rebuilt 929 all afternoon- has GOBS of power and sounds better than a lot of gear i've listened to and i'm not just saying that. Too bad you weren't close by for a test drive.

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What does gobs of power sound like? Shouldn't an amp just work? I guess I don't get these terms people use a lot, since my "awful" AVRs never sound like they have no power despite having "weak" amplifier sections. Shouldn't all SS amps sound basically the same as long as the speakers being used don't demand more power than the amp can provide? Like a speaker with 1 ohm peaks or something, requiring a really robust amp but barring that, sounding no different?

I'm content with low wattage, I've never once had any amplifier that I've ever thought "wow this thing is weak". Even my lowly Marantz 2215b and 2220b with 15 and 20 watts per channel respectively played loudly without a problem. At this point about the only thing that seems like it might produce differing sounds to me would be tube equipment, but even at that who is to say if that's desirable considering on some level it's distortion. I still think it's the speakers job to actually produce the quality sound, the amp just needs enough power to drive a speaker (And most speakers don't need much power, so high wattage is extremely overrated).
 
Gobs of clean power is a funny thing.

I have done tons of outdoor sound gigs. There is a shelter we normally use, and I have driven people out of the picnic area with a fifty watt Marantz receiver and Klipsch Cornwalls.

I also have used the same speakers and good 200 wpc Crown amps, and pushed the amps hard, with no one leaving the picnic area.

Distortion, and too much of it, will drive people out of a room faster than too loud. Loud and clean is not nearly as distressing as almost loud but clipped, distorted, and sounding bad.

Vistance has a little problem opening his mind to paradigms outside his chosen beliefs.
 
Gobs of clean power means you feel safe running the amp through your $1700 tannoys- that's the truth. I know now that the protection circuit works as well. CM labs knew how to build amps that's for sure.
 
There are a number of terms that describe equipment or sound in the subjective. Not all persons apply the same objective connotation to the terms but, most come close in application. Gobs of power is one; I think of it as being sufficient to produce an average listening level with uncompressed peaks through a particular set of speakers in a particular environment. Likewise there are terms such as synergy, authoritative, dark, slow, fast, air, mush and one of the most used and popular with reviewers, colored. Then there are quasi subjective such as soundstage and depth.

A number of decades ago in a BAS meeting we had a lively discussion concerning objective vs subjective and finally the experts agreed that we actually do not here the objective but only the effects of it and these are more likely than not more meaningly described using subjective terms rather than objective. I figure if the likes of Fisher, Marantz, McIntosh, Kloss, Villcher and Scott who were in on the meeting and did most of the discussing agreed on this, then it was good enough for at least me.
 
sheltie dave said:
Gobs of clean power is a funny thing.

I have done tons of outdoor sound gigs. There is a shelter we normally use, and I have driven people out of the picnic area with a fifty watt Marantz receiver and Klipsch Cornwalls.

I also have used the same speakers and good 200 wpc Crown amps, and pushed the amps hard, with no one leaving the picnic area.

Distortion, and too much of it, will drive people out of a room faster than too loud. Loud and clean is not nearly as distressing as almost loud but clipped, distorted, and sounding bad.

Vistance has a little problem opening his mind to paradigms outside his chosen beliefs.
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Ok? I mean I'm sure I could make one of the smaller amps I own sound bad if I just turned the volume up to 9, but that sound level is unbearable on a physiological level not even because the amp or speakers are unable to perform at those levels. You're talking about playing stuff outdoors, and I'm sure power requirements change when you have such a wide open area. But for a small room indoors, with no arched ceiling or anything, what benefit do I possibly gain with high wattage (other than paying more money typically for more wattage)?

On my Integra receiver right now it's at -42 dB on B&2 DM602 S3 speakers. I can turn the amp down to -infinity but the last number it displays is -81.5 dB. It has a bar that goes across the display telling me how far up I've turned it up (13 bars is maxed out). -42dB is 4 bars. If I crank this up to the loudest I can recall listening to any song, that would be -20 dB which is 7 bars. What you sound like you're describing is playing at close to 0 dB, and I've never once had any amp that I could do that with. I had HPM-100 speakers hooked up to a Harman Kardon PM655 integrated amplifier which is 60 watts/channel. I think I got it to 11 o'clock and then it was just so unbelievably loud, any louder would have caused serious pain to my ears (that level was already so loud that it felt uncomfortable). Plus the HPM-100s are uh...not exactly good sounding speakers IMO. In case you wonder, I wanted to see how loud I could tolerate which is why I did crank them up.

In your given situation, isn't that exactly what a sound reinforcement amp is made for? I mean most home audio amps are made to sustain the kinds of listening people do at home, but not in a large area. I'm well aware of what clipping sounds like, I've not heard it with any of the amps I own. Just saying, your story kind of reads like "I tried to use something not made for the task and it wasn't very good at it. I used something made for the task and it did a good job." Lets try going down a dirt road in a family sedan and then in a 4x4 truck, of course the truck will do better it's made for that. If your point is that the latter can do the work of the prior, then yes it can - I just objected to the qualitative sound you get by doing so (4x4 trucks do not have very nice road manners compared to a car, but can drive down a road just the same).

No one has really given me any real proof that these high power amps are necessary or even appreciably better for someone who doesn't crank their music up, other than people feel better having more watts because it really doesn't hurt to have more power but it can hurt to not have enough. If people just have money to spend and feel like they need the power, that's fine - I just feel that being more frugal, it's not really necessary. I understand my listening habits though, and don't feel I ever approach the dynamic headroom capability of any of my amps. It's not like my Integra sounds strained at -20 dB, it's just so loud and I generally don't enjoy that level of volume. Does everyone else just love playing their stuff loud but me?
 
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