DEBATE: Analog vs Digital - Class D vs Old School Amps

[TOLMACH]

I can easily hear differences between amps. Lots of nice and relatively expensive amps have their unique @sound style@. I totally love hybrid amps (with tube pre amp and AB amp) for full range purposes (butler, eos mozart/verdi, poweramper xp, etc.).

Re D vs AB/B topology. I have liimited exposure to D amps, but the mass market models like Alpine pdx sound worse in mid and high ranges than decent AB/B amps. No experience with expensive ones.

My 0.02

[sqcomp]

Originally Posted by TOLMACH

I can easily hear differences between amps. Lots of nice and relatively expensive amps have their unique @sound style@. I totally love hybrid amps (with tube pre amp and AB amp) for full range purposes (butler, eos mozart/verdi, poweramper xp, etc.).

Re D vs AB/B topology. I have liimited exposure to D amps, but the mass market models like Alpine pdx sound worse in mid and high ranges than decent AB/B amps. No experience with expensive ones.

My 0.02

There's several good reasons why you can hear the differences between amplifiers. You noticed my missive on the difference between amplifiers? I took out all the easily distinguishing variables that have absolutely nothing to do with pure signal amplification. You DON'T need a crossover, equalization, or other processing for amplifying the signal. Take those variables out and run the output of any amplifier side by side in a double blind listening test...you won't be able to hear the difference 10 out of 10 times, heck, even a majority of the time. You'd simply be guessing leaning on luck to give you the right answer.

That being said...with all the mitigating factors added in...sure! You can hear the difference between amplifiers. I can as well. I still submit that the hearing difference has more to do with amplitude differences than with the other factors I mentioned.

[09sedan]

i like music

[_S7V7N_]

Originally Posted by sqcomp

There's several good reasons why you can hear the differences between amplifiers. You noticed my missive on the difference between amplifiers? I took out all the easily distinguishing variables that have absolutely nothing to do with pure signal amplification. You DON'T need a crossover, equalization, or other processing for amplifying the signal. Take those variables out and run the output of any amplifier side by side in a double blind listening test...you won't be able to hear the difference 10 out of 10 times, heck, even a majority of the time. You'd simply be guessing leaning on luck to give you the right answer.

That being said...with all the mitigating factors added in...sure! You can hear the difference between amplifiers. I can as well. I still submit that the hearing difference has more to do with amplitude differences than with the other factors I mentioned.

So if we got a high dollar amp and a budget amp and left the crossovers on there lowest setting and only adjusted the gain they'd sound the same ?

We may be able to test this I believe some of the different brands share the same build houses from across sea's, basically cookie cutter circuit boards and diff components. It would be a slap in the face if say the budget brand Audiopipe and another highend brand shared the same motherboard =)

From there we could do the above test.

[TOLMACH]

Originally Posted by sqcomp

You DON'T need a crossover, equalization, or other processing for amplifying the signal. Take those variables out and run the output of any amplifier side by side in a double blind listening test...you won't be able to hear the difference 10 out of 10 times, heck, even a majority of the time. You'd simply be guessing leaning on luck to give you the right answer.

.

Not sure what you are talking about. At the moment I have 4 two channel amps that potentially I can use for full range amplification. All have their own @sound@. In a blind test I am pretty sure I will not only be able to tell the difference but tell you which one is working at the moment.

There is a bunch of variables that affect the sound of your amp like class, standard/dual mono, type of pre-amp - conventional vs tube, quality and type of components like capacitors/ op.amps/wiring, etc.

As an example below is one of the amps that I have -it is a pilot (test) version of EOS Verdi. Verdis that were later put into serial production (big word considering the total of 12 were produced) have different capacitors (white mundors) and differents tubes (mine are nos 1956 siemens, for a serial production nos telefunken were used).. components are very similar, but the amps still have different sound (easily recognizable)

http://photo.qip.ru/users/tolmach/95112742/124385883/

Another illustration would be comparing the top line denon HUs DCT-1 and Z1 - the same dac and internal components, different RCA output CABLES at the rear panel (DCT-1 has silver ones) -couple 6 inch cables makes huge difference in sound .. so pretty much everything affects how amp will sound like

I still agree with you that using time correction and electronic crossover changes sound. This was one of the reason why I moved to @passive@ systems.