[ajinfla]

Thank you for explaining what I want to explain but with a more appropriate vocabulary than I can use. Great post.

Thank you sir.

 

[ajinfla]

I hope your not refering to me in your group of individuals.

Nope, no sir, completely generic and generalized statement. Never put the shoe on unless it fits!

 

[magic]

Nope, no sir, completely generic and generalized statement. Never put the shoe on unless it fits!

Thanks

 

[sub_crazy]

Hah. Actually, there are a great many differences. All objectively quantifiable, if real. There are also, clearly, purely subjective, differences in opinions, etc and purely imaginary differences, purported as facts.
Like with any other luxury item, like a Rolex or Maybach. It will bring pride of ownership, status etc. for the owner that a Casio or Hyundai won't.
But that doesn't make it tell better time, or get better gas mileage, reliability, etc. etc....i.e, verifiably real function.
To each there own, enjoy you purchases, make no specious claims on HTS...all is good.
Especially hiding behind under pseudonyms and bluster, rather than posting under real person, with rational and verifiable statements.

cheers

The differences in amps were a fact to me, it doesn't affect my life in the slightest if it is not a fact to you.

I will admit that with my Von Schweikerts I don't hear much difference at all with amps but I have been with the same amp for many years now. When I owned the Aerial Model 9 I noticed a difference between the EAD PM2000 I had sold in favor of a Theta Dreadnaught, for music it was close but for movies the Aerials sounded bad. I took the amp back to my dealer and we checked it out and it was operating fine. When I told him why I was so unhappy with the amp he refunded my money and had me take a Earthquake Supernova amp he got in a trade. I scoffed at the Earthquake amp as I only got it for $1,500 but he said that he thinks I will enjoy it a lot more for movies. Well he was right, drove the Aerials much better for movies and I kept the Earthquake until I finally found another EAD PM2000 to replace it. The other speakers I had that the amp change was noticeable were Thiels and that got me to thinking that the speakers that are a little more difficult loads to drive are the ones that benefit from better amplification. The parts that made me cringe were mostly during movies and that was probably just the amp struggling and introducing distortion.

I am not going to try and convince anyone otherwise that there is a difference, that is up to them. I am just trying to share my experience since I have been fortunate enough to own a large # of amps over the years.

 

[sub_crazy]

If they are all the same why did you notice listening fatigue with the krell?

I was just being sarcastic :sarcastic: I used the wrong smiley.

With the Krell KAV I just noticed that after a month my listening sessions were short for music, I would skip through tracks in CD's quickly and maybe only listen for an hour at most. For movies I could not tell the difference, I may have preferred the krell as it seamed to be more dynamic. I decided to go back to the Parasound for awhile since it was still in my rack powering the surrounds after a month and noticed that now I was back to my normal listening routines. I would get so caught up in the music that I would wind up listening to whole CD's and my listening sessions were much longer again. I did go back to the Krell after a few weeks as that was the only variable and after a few weeks I sold the Krell and stayed with the Parasound.

I really wanted to love the Krell, I lusted over owning a Krell since I first got into audio. I even thought about buying one of the Class A Krell amps after that experience because I thought it was just the lower line KAV series that were not good. I had a chance to listen to a Krell front end Class A setup with Thiel 3.6 speakers at another friends house and noticed that the sound was just grating to me after awhile. I am not a big Thiel fan either after owning a pair of CS2.3 and MCS1 center, the only Thiels I really enjoyed that I personally owned were the SCS3 and Powerpoints I used in a smaller system.

I never owned a Krell 2 channel pre-amp but recently picked up a Krell HTS 7.1 used for a great deal just out of curiosity. The HTS sounds outstanding for music compared to my Sherwood with Trinnov but I have never need a huge fan of the Sherwood for music anyway, just movies. For movies the Krell is very close even though it does not have any of the HD audio codecs unless I connect the 7.1 outputs of my Oppo into the 7.1 inputs of the Krell. I have tried the 7.1 inputs but find just regular DTS and Dolby Digital to be just as good. It still doesn't have the bubble like surround envelopment of the Trinnov which is outstanding but dynamics and especially bass is probably better on the Krell.

 

[ajinfla]

All of this is a moot point though as we all know there is no difference in amplifiers

Hah. Actually, there are a great many differences. All objectively quantifiable, if real.

The differences in amps were a fact to me, it doesn't affect my life in the slightest if it is not a fact to you.

:scratch:

Any opticians on the forum willing to help?

 

[sub_crazy]

Your post came off to me as discounting what I had to say, I guess I read into it wrong and these comments were not directed at me but I was the one who was quoted:

There are also, clearly, purely subjective, differences in opinions, etc and purely imaginary differences, purported as facts.
Like with any other luxury item, like a Rolex or Maybach. It will bring pride of ownership, status etc. for the owner that a Casio or Hyundai won't.
But that doesn't make it tell better time, or get better gas mileage, reliability, etc. etc....i.e, verifiably real function.
To each there own, enjoy you purchases, make no specious claims on HTS...all is good.
Especially hiding behind under pseudonyms and bluster, rather than posting under real person, with rational and verifiable statements.

You only quoted the first part of your post, not the rest which goes on to say the opposite it sounds like to me.

Maybe I just read your comments the wrong way but to me when you say "make no specious claims on HTS...all is good" to a post were I gave an opinion based on my experiences then your saying it's plausible but wrong.

Can we please get into a new debate centered around religion or politics instead, it would have to be more pleasant than this

Either way I am done with this, it's pointless anyway.

 

[ajinfla]

I guess I read into it wrong and these comments were not directed at me

Bingo, we have a winner!

 

[lcaillo]

The basic function of an amplifier, is to multiply the voltage input, vs output. Hence it's not terribly surprising to the technically informed, that a great many will be indistinguishable from each other.

I hate to be pedantic, but we need to be precise and complete. An amplifier which only multiplies voltage would be of little use. An amplifier takes a voltage and multiplies it, and delivers the current demanded by the load with the resulting voltage.

I don't see the logical connection between your definition of an amplifier and expected similarities. In practice, I agree, a great many will be audibly indistinguishable, but there are great differences in design and quality that can make for significant differences as well.

[/QUOTE]
Actually, barring pathological conditions (apples to oranges comparisons), like a 50w vs 500w driving a complex load, or a high vs low output impedance amp, etc, etc, etc., they are indistinguishable....to ears. There is zero evidence to the contrary (no, "I heard this", I saw Bigfoot, etc, etc perceptions don't count). If there was such evidence, it would have been presented long ago, instead of incessant hand waving and incomprehension of basic human perception.[/QUOTE]

I disagree that there is zero evidence to the contrary. That evidence is there, though it might not be sufficient nor useful to you and me. Lots of people hear differences. Maybe that is just belief, maybe it is perception affected by other variables in play such as expectation bias or status. That does not make their experiences less valid or useful to the many that hear differences. Your standard for what is real is different. We have to also consider that many of the comparisons that are claimed to be objective start off trying to prove the negative. This is simply faulty science and introduces lots of potential biases itself. Not all comparisons are so, and the large body of evidence does favor the conclusion that most amps sound more similar than not, but we have to account for the rest of the probablility and the bias of conventional wisdom and be open minded.

[/QUOTE]Loudspeakers OTOH, are transducers. They take voltages (electrical domain) and transduce them to the acoustic domain. Soundwaves, for our ears to perceive. 3 dimensionally, with a polar pattern dependent on the arrangement, number, etc of drivers. And there are 2 of those (for stereo). So there is already huge variability. Placed somwhere in a 3D bounded space, your rooms, with even more variance (size, reflectivity and lossiness of various surfaces, furnishings, etc). Where they radiate and sum at your ears, placed somewhere in that room.
What a shocker there is quite a bit of variability with loudspeaker sound!! .

cheers,[/QUOTE]

Again, voltage is only part of the equation. In fact, it is the current variable that likely accounts for many perceived differences in amplifiers should one actually be able to hear differences. As you know well, AJ, voice coils with voltage applied do not move in proportion to that voltage unless there is sufficient current available. Again, not wanting to correct you because I know you know this very well, but I think in trying to simplify the matter you violated Einstein's view regarding simplicity.

 

[ajinfla]

Well, that will teach me trying to simplify!:laugh:

...and I did say "...to ears", which is a simplification for "ears only", aka "blind".
Face it Leonard, I'm just waaay too lazy to detail everything.

cheers,

AJ

 

[lcaillo]

Loaded terms there...few who hear differences would consider that they are using more than their ears and the term blind can have lots of connotations. There just is no room in threads like this for metaphors nor anything but precisely communicating your beliefs and experiences.

We have to be precise in how we communicate, and that is not often the case in internet forums. The reality is, however, that there are many reading everything here who have very different levels of understanding of the language and very different base perspectives which lead to interpretations of meaning that may not be what you intend.

 

[Lumen]

Ahh, yes... Perception vs. facts, Golden Ears vs. arsenals of precision lab equipment, et.c etc. etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseum. :boxer: :sad:

In the context of art, why do the vast majority of human beings trust eyesight so much more then hearing? How many times have you heard: "This TV looks so much better than that one"? Now ask yourself how many times have you witnessed costly audio gear (or any other) dismissed because "only Golden Ears can hear the difference." Really? :rubeyes:

lddude:
All very controversial, and the source of the ultimate divide between us. While providing sustenance to some, others grow weary of the debate and withdraw. As was previously mentioned, neither side will EVER convert the other over to their belief system. Unless and until a scientific instrument is invented that can measure claimed audible differences, both sides can strut their views in full peacock fashion down Main Street and spread whatever information or misinformation they please--to the detriment of advancing the enjoyment of art.

lddude:
Music and movies are art forms which evoke emotional responses from their respective audiences. Their presentation in the home is either close to the original, or it's not. The goal of the equipment used to recreate those art forms is first and foremost, "to do no harm." That is, no real-world electronic device performs according to its ideal scientific model. Any real-world distortions, however slight, should be "crimes of omission," rather than "crimes of commission." Why? Because humans generally perceive (there's that term again) such reproduction as more pleasurable. For example, rolled-off treble (something missing) generally sounds better than peaky treble (something added). The amps-are-amps crowd yell foul and place the burden of proof on the it-sounds-good-so-it-is-good crowd. The latter contrarily charge the former with skewed ABX tests and measuring the wrong things.

So where does that leave us? :huh:
Can we ever establish a measurement system that coincides with perceived quality of not just amps, but of the entire A/V chain. Floyd Toole of Harman fame has attempted--and succeeded--in doing just that in the field of loudspeaker design. Read about it here and here and here. Can't we keep open minds and consider that THD, IMD, slew rate, impedance, etc. are not the be-all-end-all of amplifier design? I ask you to at at least consider what happened back in the day when amplifier manufacturers engaged in the dreaded THD percentage wars. The number of zeroes to the right of the decimal became a marketing frenzy that yielded more than a few amps with horrid sound.

To paraphrase AJ: "Don't refute evidence with lofty claims."
To paraphrase Leonard: "Beware of potential bias in faulty science."

:wave: