In article , Bob Latham
wrote:
In article , Jim Lesurf
wrote:
In article , Trevor
wrote:
I doubt peoples hearing is good enough to tell the difference
between various expensive amps and tuners anyway.
On that, the evidence probably supports you. Claims that amplifiers
'sound different' generally fail to be supported by carefully
conducted listening comparisons. :-)
I know its futile and I apologise but I can't resist.
You may have missed the word "generally" in the above... ;-
Over the last 30 years I have compared amplifiers something like a 20
times I should say. Some home made from bare parts like that well know
75W+75W that everyone built (at least my friends and I did) in the late
70s.
I long ago lost count of how many amplifiers I've tried out (many of which
I designed and built)....
[snip]
I have two points to make which no doubt will be rubbished (but so what).
1) I have never had a problem listening to amps and deciding which I
prefer. To me amplifiers do not sound the same and I'm sometimes very
surprised by comparing when things are not as I would have predicted.
I@m sure in my mind that if the differences I perceived were all due to
hype or reviews or prestige then my preference would be predictable but
it often is not. My choice being as clear as my general preference for
Kef rather than B&W speakers which for me are always to warm and a bit
"thick" sounding.
The problems are are that:
1) what you claim is either ambiguous or sweeping. When you say "do not
sound the same" you don't say if *every* one sounds different to another,
or if sometimes one doesn't sound like another. The two claims would be
very different.
2) The reality is that despite many people making such claims over many
decades, so far as I know, whenever they are put to a controlled test -
and obvious problems like high distortion or large differences in frequency
response are avoided - the result is generally that no-one has shown that
they can hear what the claim. This includes tests by various 'golden eared'
expert listeners in audio. To the point that they now avoid such tests and
avoid mentioning that they have repeatedly been carried out in the past
with the results I outline. Or, indeed, that they participated in such a
test and were unable to show they heard what they claim... :-)
There are exceptions, but so far as I can tell they seem to be for fairly
boring reasons like clipping of one amp or some other unsurprising
difference.
Neither of the above "rubbishes" what you say. But it just puts it into the
context.
2) I don't listen to amplifiers at a measured same amplitude setting as
advocated so much on this newsgroup. The reason is that that is not how
I listen to music.
That is fine for listening to music. But means that any claim that one amp
sounds different to the other may be simply due to the difference in level.
Hence the comparisions you describe simply can't be used as a basis for
what you claim about amplifiers, I'm afraid.
The point here is that people "advocate" this for the specific purpose of
trying to determine if any two units sound 'different' when used for
exactly the same purpose and conditions of use. They don't "advocate" it
for enjoying music so far as I know. :-) If you don't do this, you simply
aren't comparing like with like in terms of factors which may have nothing
to do with the amps.
I don't put a CD on and set it to exactly the same
setting as before or even last night. I adjust the volume until I think
it sounds best. That is also what I do when I listen to amplifiers I
"focus" each amp individually. I don't particularly advocate others to
do this but its my way.
Fine for listening to music. But not a basis for claiming one amp sound
different to another - apart perhaps from noting that one amp clips at a
different level to another.
FWIW I've also lost count of how often I thought one unit sounded different
to another, only to find that the 'difference' vanished when I listened
again at some later point, or took more care with the comparison. I'm
afraid that human hearing is too easily affected by all kinds of factors to
rely on tests of the kind you describe above for reaching a general
conclusion that amps 'sound different' to one another.
BTW Did you read the PDFs I emailed to you at your request some months ago?
They detailed some of the evidence on how people can think sounds are
'different' when they are not.
Slainte,
Jim
--
Electronics
http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc
http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio
http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc.
http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html
What kind of sound quality can I expect from a Sony receiver?
Linear Mode
