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Solid state amps all sound the same?

Do all well made SS amps sound the same

  • Total voters
    50
M

McFixIt

New Member
I never believed all SS amps sounded the same, after all I compared the amp section in my receiver vs that of a separ!ate amp and the difference was night and day. Over the years I've acquired a few "mid-fi" amps and those all sounded the same with both my PSB IMage t6s and my Paradigm studio 20 v5s. Recently I found a steal of a deal on a "tested-electrically good condition" McIntosh MC-7150 with broken glass. So I bought it, fixed the glass, swapped in LED lights, its beautiful! I set up my garage for some extensive AB comparison. I used my old Marantz SR7008 as a pre, and the source was my Project Debut Carbon DC and the speakers I used the paradigm studios. I compared several VERY different solid state amps in AB style testing. The stable:
2 Emotiva UPA1 monoblocks
Rotel RMB 1066 bridged
Marantz MM7025
McIntosh MC-7150

All 4 of these amps sounded arguably the same, none more detailed, sound stage was the same... I didn't find the mac had "buttery mids" whatever the hell that means.

After this experience I wanted to see what other folks thoughts were. Do they really all sound the same? Do I need a more detailed or revealing speaker to appreciate any change? Or are expensive amps just snake oil? Is the MC-7150 just too old to compete? I cannot imagine amp technology has changed that much in 30 years. Truth be told I had expected the MC-7150 to best the rest in spades.
 
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Now you need another preamp to see if all the power amps sound alike again, but different than they did with the Marantz preamp??
 
I had not considered that! Seems obvious enough. I have a marantz sr7013 that I will exclude assuming it sounds like the sr7008, but I do have an old tube pre that I had not considered... thanks! I'll have to fire that up and run through the amps again.
 
I can only afford the old school high end stuff, but I absolutely notice a difference between say a Pioneer SPEC II and a Mcintosh MC2205. Both available around the same years (75-80ish) and around the same wpc.

They are a little different beasts, with the SPEC being fully direct coupled and the MC having cap couple stage and output trans. I'm sure that has something to do with it.
 
I've had a whack of different amps. Low end, mid Fi, and some higher end, recently. And at each level, I really can't believe how different they sounded.
I mean, sure, from a $500 amp to a $5000 amp, there's gonna be some difference. But there's a heck of a difference in the sound between a couple of inexpensive amps like an HK 330, and a similarly priced Technics, Denon or Yamaha.
10 or 15 years ago I would have argued the very opposite. Go figure ...
 
OTOH, all speakers sound alike.
Wait! That's wrong.
It's all TTs.
No, I meant phono carts... but, no, that is wrong, too.
All preamps - no, they don't either.
CD players? Tape decks? Nope and nope.
DACs? Streamers? No.

Okay, nothing sounds like nothing else.
Maybe cats.
 
I do think that, at reasonable listening levels, with good speakers, an appropriate input, etc., all good-measuring SS amps will sound pretty damn similar. However, most SS amps don't actually measure that well. For proof of that, check out Amir's measurements at Audio Science Review. At the very least, we can say that DACs measure far better than amplifiers typically.

Of course, measuring "well" is subjective. Tube amps measure very poorly in terms of THD etc., but they can sound quite good subjectively. I think that certain types of distortion can be great for sound, especially in certain rooms and with certain speakers.

I have Class D Hypex Nc400 monoblock amplifiers, which will smoke almost anything in a THD measurement shootout. From a technical perspective, they're phenomenal amps, and they sound very good with all my speakers. But, with my Stax headphones (using a transformer), the Nc400s sound way too harsh and fatiguing. The Stax sound far better with my Pioneer M-22, which might have rolled-off frequency response, or maybe it's an effect of the weird impedance and very low power requirements of the headphones.

At this point, my philosophy is: own one reference-quality modern amplifier for low-THD listening. Then buy older stuff with interesting, pleasant, unique distortion. But I don't see much point in collecting modern, well-designed SS, because it does genuinely sound quite similar. That's why I plan to sell a Sony TA-4650 I recently restored; it's such a good amp that it sounds like my Nc400s, and I don't really see the point.
 
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Meow!

Nothing is farther from the truth. I've even had 2 exact same amps and one sounded better than the other one. Minute differences maybe.. but they are there. For a test like that you need sources that are as good as possible, and the same for interconnects and speakers. Not to mention the preamp. The heart of the system.
You have to be able to hear the differences after all. Maybe you have hearing loss?
Now lets consider the room. A garage? Probably not the best place to do a test like that.
If you played that Mac and Rotel into a cheap 6 inch speaker I bet they would sound closer to being the same. Play them into a pair of better speakers and I bet you hear more of a difference. Nothing wrong with the speakers you have.. but if I wanted to do a serious AB comparison of amplifiers if would have to be something I'm familiar with and able to reproduce the sounds accurately.

FWIW I do tests like this all the time, testing out amps, preamps, or what ever I'm working on at the time. I have a test system setup, I know not everybody can do that. But what you can do is listen to the amps in the same room you will use them in. The living room, a den, or whatever. Then use the best speakers you have. In your case, the PSB's. Go get a real preamp. Good interconnects. When I say good, it dosent mean they have to be expensive. Listen to amp A for an hour or so. Then put in amp B. Play a variety of music. Rock, jazz, whatever.

There has definitely been a lot of changes in amps over 30 years.

I would expect the Emotiva and Marantz amps to sound similar. The Rotel is aimed at HT and not really a hi-fi amp. So wont sound like one. The Mac is a "new mac" made in the 90's. I can see why they might sound similar.
 
Bigbeard said:
No. This is a radical over-simplification that people use to avoid thinking (or use for trolling).

...
Click to expand...

I find it quite rare that it's actually ever said in the simplified form. Usually the radical over-simplification comes from others who take that little bit out of the context of qualifiers in order to build their strawmen.
 
Whatever happened to Mick Fixit?
Are you still out there?
Did you listen again with the other preamp?
Any conclusion?
 
whoaru99 said:
I find it quite rare that it's actually ever said in the simplified form. Usually the radical over-simplification comes from others who take that little bit out of the context of qualifiers in order to build their strawmen.
Click to expand...
Yeah, doesn't that drive ya nuts?

Someone will post a 4 paragraph answer to a member's post, staying on the thread topic, and some brawler on here, will cut out a half a sentence from the body of text; thinking ... alright! I can f**k with these words, nicely. Then they'll paste it in a quote and add some s**t to it, and post what is usually a personal attack, and nothing to do with the topic.

I guess with things closed down, there aren't any bar fights for venting. However, this has been going on for a long time.
 
Ok. Sorry for the delay. I stopped getting updates from audiokarma and assumed the thread died.

I have played with it more! The mac definitely sounds better than the emo amps in my living room set up with the PSB (acoustics are far from great but spank the piss out of my garages acoustics). It also sounded night and day different in the garage with a cheap Amazon tube pre with upgraded tubes. So I am happy to put this myth of them sounding the same to bed... but in this process cam up with even more questions. I think at this stage of the game its fair to say my speakers are probably the weakest link so maybe ita time for something new. Open to suggestions on where to start. Thanks for all the replies!!
 
It is hard to decide when the interaction between the amplifier and the speakers starts to make the different sound and when the amplifier itself has a "special coloration" or "special sound".

Even by looking at the schematic, it's (sometimes) easy to see what the priorities were when making an amplifier. Leaving the ones where "budget" was the priority, there are some that decidedly wanted to avoid crossover distortion so go to SET class A. These surely have a different sound (and heat) signature.
Then there are some with half a dozen output transistors that make a statement to drive low impedances. These would sound much better if the loudspeakers used to audition several amplifiers have a low impedane.
A class A VAS compared to a push-pull version also has it's own attributes to the sound.

Lots of different approaches to a problem that doesn't seem to have a single solution. And each approach usually has its own merits and deficits. Now, if your loudspeakers are decent, your listening space doesn't introduce a hell of it's own and your ears aren't damaged, you are bound to be able to hear differences. With the most pronounced being clipping that actually occurs much more often than we tend to think, especially with musical content with a high crest factor.

A few decades ago, a good childhood friend, demonstrated to me his new system. He had a really nice set of pre-power amp from Electrocompaniet, a very expensive set of speaker wires (that - as per his explanation were still not burned in) connecting a pair of fair tower loudspeakers with multiple 8" woofers and a tweeter on top. They could be decent but their factory name meant nothing to me. And demonstrated the system using heavy metal music. I didn't know where to start explaining to him the futility of his enterprise so I didn't. The morale of this digression is: It's important what music you listen to when you want to discover the merits of a system. Makes little sense to spend a lot of money for a good sounding system only to listen to distortion and noise.
 
Definitely not, and why I now have two Belles 1 amps heh heh heh. Originally had them biamping my Infinitys so I purposely purchased two with close serial numbers. Wanted some of that Belles magic in the living rm so the Infinitys are no longer biamped.

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Had a nice McIntosh MC 2002 that was just outstanding, long story why I no longer have the McIntosh gear. But as great as it was the Belles just have a sweetness the Mac lacked making it a bit clinical in direct comparison.
 
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Glad you made it back, Mick! So, yeah, you will find as you mess more and more that almost every component will add some color or another to your sonic painting. Some will be subtle, others pronounced. There is always room for debate and discussion as to which single component is the most influential. My vote is speakers.
But, in general, I think it’s a good idea to look at specs. Like Total Harmonic Distortion, RMS watts, etc when choosing components.
What coloration sounds “better” or “worse” is happening in the last component, the one between your eardrums.
 
SaSi said:
The morale of this digression is: It's important what music you listen to when you want to discover the merits of a system. Makes little sense to spend a lot of money for a good sounding system only to listen to distortion and noise.
Click to expand...

I scratch my head sometimes at the mega buck systems that are only used for a single instrument or Dianna Krall. Like heavy Metal will never show the true ability of the gear, neither will DK. Shows are great for playing the least taxing and least complex music to show off a half million dollar system.

My new favorite test track is Keb Mo - There's More Than One Way Home
 
I suspect that all well made low distortion, low output impedance, flat frequency response amps should sound the same. What would be the mechanism causing a difference? Also, all listening tests need to be done in a double blind ABX or similar manner. Speakers, and anything electromechanical (mics, pickups) are a wholly different story.
 
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