"harrogate2" wrote in message
...
I must admit that I have never subscribed to the 'golden ear' brigade.


Believe it - they exist. I once asked my partner (musician) to stop me when
I had increased the sound from a Technics deck (with pitch sliders) by a
semitone by 'blind' listening alone - she stopped me at virtually *dead on*
+ 6%!! (On many other occasions she has been able point out subtle
differences in sounds that I hadn't heard up 'til then but which became
immediately obvious.....)

Me? - I've no idea and never trust my own hearing beyond 'liking/preferring'
or 'not liking/not preferring' a sound. Which is why I often quote the
remarks of others who claim (and seem) to have better 'listening' abilities.
Much as some here don't want to hear it, I only decide on 'improvements' (or
otherwise) over an extended listening period with a range of very familiar
music. But then I go a long way matching components to produce a similar
'house' sound anyway and will only say that, AFAIAC, an amp is only one half
of the vital and inseparable amp/speakers combination in any given listening
room, in any case...


snip

The change to the NAD was more subtle but still noticable. Certainly
the top end was more detailed (cymbals and triangles show things up
remarkably well) and the bass was noticably deeper but not so 'in your
face' (I like classical organ music.) Again however the frequency
response and phase responses were almost identical to the other two.

Anyone any polite suggestions as to cause? Even my wife and children
(then teenagers) noticed the difference without asking or prompting.


Well if the 'all good amps sound the same' mantra is true (a good example of
the 'banging on' we hear so much about...) it kinda infers that at least one
of your amps isn't too good, doesn't it? Also that manufacturers using
different components, circuit topologies and architecture must, for the
greater part, be simply ****ing in the breeze if all they do is achieve
another version of exactly the same sound...??

To me it's quite simple - I definitely hear no difference between SS amps
from, say, £150 and up other than sheer volume, but I don't think any two
different valve amps will sound exactly the same and even identical models
can easily be 'tuned' to be different by swapping valves and other
components. This is a great part of the appeal for me - they allow me to
'tweak' a sound that I like and which I think sounds best or faithful
according to *my* own ideas.

What's scary is just how quickly I can accomodate to the sound of different
systems and it indicates to me that, for all the talk of 'fidelity' to
mastertapes (real or imagined) or live events (whether attended or not),
that we *all* do a lot of kidding ourselves that we have *neutral* and
'accurate' systems.....

Moreover, I don't think that one amp/speaker combination is ever likely to
be 'ideal' for *all* different types of music and prefer to run a number of
different setups (there will be 4 of them on the go, later this afternoon)
for different types of music - choirs or solo female vocals accompanied by
an acoustic guitar vs. electronic dance/trance/techno being two fairly good
examples of music that benefit from quite different setups IMO...

But then, that's just me.... :-)