Don't all amplifiers sound the same..

[catch 22]

If all amps did sound the same.......what a boring hobby this would be. My hearing (tinnitis) is not what it used to be, but even I can hear the difference between "house sounds" and know I like a warmer amp/receiver with slightly forward/detailed speakers, how could I possibly know this if all amps sound the same?

 

[zebra03]

Hey! some people Collect things
Ie: Bert collected(s?) Paper clips.
Hoarding comes to mind .
When I find something Exceptional.. I keep it..and discard the Dross.
No Interest in Warehousing useless/superceeded gear.

Yes... there ARE audible amp differences, anyone who has owned TWO Amps knows that,
Claiming otherwise merely amounts to shinning a searchlight on ones personal inexperience.. and somewhat less charitably; Ignorance

So Peter J Walker, Alan Shaw, Ken Kantor, et al are ignorant, now? :thumbsdn:

When in doubt and having no facts , insult people . Real mature .:thumbsdn: Read up on Mr Kantor and his research . Knowledge is a good thing .

 

[for_p1]

I'll see your Thiels and raise you an old pair of Apogees or some Infinitys (which suck up massive amounts of power and present a 1 ohm load at some frequencies). It isn't really hard to find speakers that present a difficult load.

I don't think anybody is disputing that some amps do much better driving such difficult loads than others. The question here seems to be more the case of what if the load (speaker) does NOT make extraordinary demands on the amp. Would the sonic differences still be so apparent?

In another example which I experienced myself : B&W Matrix 802s2 the difference between Yaqin 100B and Yamaha mx-1000 was mostly in the bass - if music has no bass, there was no difference. But you cannot expect only listen one type of music through system.

 

[for_p1]

What is one to do when the same amp sounds different on different days! (Sorry, I couldn't resist) lol

The combinations are as infinite as the imagination wishes them to be. And if you're into numbers alone, then there are no combinations and once you match everything, well it's the same.

Where does one go from here, I wonder? The great thing about AK is how certain everyone here is. What happened to good old "doubt" and being human? Or, the more I know the less I know stuff!

This is not an amp difference - it is air density difference. It was discussed on another thread recently.

 

[charles 1973]

"Don't all amplifiers sound the same."
--------------

They might if you feed high quality amps designed for neutrality a 1,000 hz sine wave into one channel. But music is so much more complex than that. Combined with the effects of how well isolated the two channels are leaves plenty of room for variations. Albeit not nearly as much as speakers or a phono cartridge.

Many amps are also voiced for a specific sound. And just the normal variations in manufacturing might make a difference. So 2 amps of the same model can sound different.

That said I honestly believe a $1,000 stereo amp today from a reputable manufacture like Yamaha, Marantz, NAD, Onkyo and others would have very pleasing sound to my ears. I believe today's amps are voiced closer to neutral than in the past.

 

[sqlsavior]

...

Where does one go from here, I wonder? The great thing about AK is how certain everyone here is. What happened to good old "doubt" and being human? Or, the more I know the less I know stuff!

Maybe three years ago my answer would not have been so certain. I've personally experienced preamp differences since the late 70's, but due to conflating factors and plain lack of exposure, had not previously experienced a situation where long experience with one setup was followed by replacing the power amp (or power amp section) alone. Now I have, more than once, and have heard unmistakeable differences. These counterexamples, although few in number, suffice to disprove the "they all sound the same" assertion, to my ears and to my satisfaction, until one starts piling on qualifiers, at least.

I can see folks reporting that they themselves haven't heard power amp differences, but the blanket assertion that "they all sound the same" still seems exceedingly odd to me in an audio forum. And although we have had several notable, highly regarded speaker designers make this assertion, I'm not aware of any leading amp designers making that claim, fwiw.

 

[whoaru99]

"All amps sound the same" is an odd statement, because nobody has ever made that actual statement from what I've been able to find.

It's quite common to have the actual statement made perverted into that, in attempt to derail or mock the actual underlying point.

 

[Hyperion]

"Don't all amplifiers sound the same.."

"Why should one competently designed amplifier sound different to the next"?

"don't they all sound the same"?

After seeing this in the title and OP text, I find the distinction you are trying to make is lost on me. I believe that the OP wanted those perversions to take place... and there is no underlying point.

 

[MEDiASAPiENS]

IMHO, If by amps you mean power amplifiers, then perhaps, in theory they should all sound the same. However if we are talking about integrated amps where pre and amp are in the same box then they all sound slightly different. Most integrated amps are not impartial or neutral sounding due to different circuitry. It could be entirely accidental difference or it could be one of those "designed by ear" amps.

 

[Binkman]

LOL Hyperion.. OP probably laughing his ass off.

 

[2chman]

LOL Hyperion.. OP probably laughing his ass off.

Yep originally i thought we were being "pranked:scratch2:

 

[for_p1]

I know someone who runs a pair of B&W 803's on a pair 300B SETs and HE LIKES IT. I don't but if he is happy, who am I to day he is crazy.

I am not surprised. Sometimes I use 845 based amp (probably 2x more power than 300B though) with my 802D - some music sounds better that way.

 

[stereofanboy]

Maybe no amp designer is competent enough to get it right yet. Once someone unlocks that door then all amps will sound the same................

I would argue that any audio company that has managed to stay in business and earn a profit has demonstrated competency.

I would argue that the competency displayed is business competency rather than amplifier design competency and in many cases is probably due to employees other than the amplifier designer.

If someone sets out to design an amplifier and ends up with something that amplifies and also changes the sound, they've failed in their original purpose. That doesn't mean that the design won't sell once those other employees get done doing what they do best.

There's a huge list of caveats attached to the All Amps... statement that are usually forgotten. When the list is satisfied there's little evidence that anybody can tell the difference. Even when it isn't, it's harder to tell the difference than you might think. Every time I've thought there was a difference between power amps, the more I refined the test and removed biases, the smaller the difference became, until it faded away to nothing.

ConradH ignores the experience of virtually every other member who has heard a difference and determined a personal preference as a result. His theory fails to explain the fanaticism shown by devotees to the various amplifier types and the many designers who strive for their own signature sound.

Forgotten or overlooked or maybe simply ignored.

 

[D3vil99]

Amplifiers don't sound the same, My NAD C300 has no bass performance compared to my Akai although the NAD is less noisy (with no input sound) compared to the Akai. I regularly switch between four sets of speaker and cables to see if it makes difference. There's no need to do any measurements of Double Blind ABX test.

 

[Gibsonian]

Hard to believe this is a controversial topic. Preamps sound different but amps don't? I have shipped off a number of both after listening and finding differences and I have zero brand or appearance biases. I guess my ears are discriminating or I am highly delusional!

 

[SoCal Sam]

Hard to believe this is a controversial topic. Preamps sound different but amps don't? I have shipped off a number of both after listening and finding differences and I have zero brand or appearance biases. I guess my ears are discriminating or I am highly delusional!

You are on solid ground. Anything in the delivery chain can bend the signal. Amps are no different from preamps in this regard.

Still not convinced flat earthers? Even cables and interconnects sound different and they are the most passive link in the audio chain.

 

[Superampman]

Has there been a distinction made between the tube guys and their complaint regarding 'bright' sounding ss amps and the rest of us yet? Can they please step forward and identify themselves? Has their assertion been debunked yet? There is no controversy there but an apparently accepted fact. So if we can hear the differences between tubes and ss in general, how does it not stand to reason that we can hear the same causative distinctions among ss amps? Tube amps have NFB adjustment for just this purpose. Has IMD all of a sudden become moot? Transient response? Linearity?

 

[JP]

You are on solid ground. Anything in the delivery chain can bend the signal. Amps are no different from preamps in this regard.

Still not convinced flat earthers? Even cables and interconnects sound different and they are the most passive link in the audio chain.

As passive as any other resistor, inductor, or capacitor.

 

[whoaru99]

... Has IMD all of a sudden become moot? Transient response? Linearity?

All addressed with good design as I believe Mr. Kantor relayed in the past. Of course, there are some poorly designed, out of tune, or flat out broken amps out there.

 

[Gibsonian]

All addressed with good design as I believe Mr. Kantor relayed in the past. Of course, there are some poorly designed, out of tune, or flat out broken amps out there.

Different amp designs and component selection provide different results in amplifier performance and testing results and thus what we are able to hear. No different than any preamplifier or other link in the chain.