Might as well start another War....

[lasse]

Re: Might as well start another War....

Big "YUP" to that one. I've been quiet about this, but I'm doing some design work for a high end audio amp company in the US. Their big thing is transparency, but a couple models have some coloration introduced by poor circuit design. The interesting part - they get RAVE reviews, but the problems are measurable.

A lot (all?) of these guys building boutique amps have a lot of money invested up front. They're just trying to recoup since they don't have the sales numbers that drive prices down.

Doing work like this has shown me that it's a lot more interesting to let someone else spend the money on an amplifier design. What bugs me though, is that unless you get lucky and hire a good engineer, you end up with a design that is misunderstood and can really throw good money after bad. (Such is the case for the work I'm fixing).

Hello,

I coldn´t help noticing that you "advertize" the unit (DCX2496) that is the "heart" in my set-up. Does that mean that you think that this cheap, mid-end unit has merits comparable to high-end "boutiqish" amps??

Could it being considered cost-efficient to base your setup on that?:D

Regards//lasse

[envisionelec]

Re: Might as well start another War....

The $50,000 amplifier is probably more likely to have intentional changes to impart an audible 'coloration' upon the amplified signal. Fancy brand names and 'reps' by audiophiles on the other hand, will cost you far more to meet that psychological improvement needed to comfort some.

The speaker(s) and room acoustic(s) are by far more relevant.

-Chris

Big "YUP" to that one. I've been quiet about this, but I'm doing some design work for a high end audio amp company in the US. Their big thing is transparency, but a couple models have some coloration introduced by poor circuit design. The interesting part - they get RAVE reviews, but the problems are measurable.

A lot (all?) of these guys building boutique amps have a lot of money invested up front. They're just trying to recoup since they don't have the sales numbers that drive prices down.

Doing work like this has shown me that it's a lot more interesting to let someone else spend the money on an amplifier design. What bugs me though, is that unless you get lucky and hire a good engineer, you end up with a design that is misunderstood and can really throw good money after bad. (Such is the case for the work I'm fixing).

[J.Lee]

Re: Might as well start another War....

Wow!!

These are some really excellent thoughts here. I'll need to go back through this thread a dozen times to glean all the wisdom here.

This is what I was after.

There is absolutely no getting around the fact that there are multitudes of people into this Hobby that have more money than 95% of us will ever have. You constantly see guys virtually totally switching out 100K systems for something they think is better and in less than months they're at it again. The same guys write technical testimonies as to why this sounds better than what they had that are virtual dissertations.

Some of it is virtually ugly as Sin ... 'Stingray Tubes' , other stuff bling but cool to look at .. 'Shanling' and then there are all the Amps that simply look homegeneous and are based on the simplest signal path to get the juice to the source.

I look back often at when I bought what I thought then was my 1st excellent system . I spent $3100 in 1971 dollars and bought Quad!! What a foolish system. Whats $3100 in todays bucks? Back then had I considered 2 channel I remember what I could have purchased and it makes me ill.

I remember a thread here from a couple years back from a Guy who'd stated when he got 'stung' by the bug he spent much time at a high end joint and the Salesman was decent enough to teach him how to best spend his money to get what he was really after and that being sound!

Wish now I'd not let my Ego make my decisions then simply for what I would have learned from that.

Now my budget is limited, I'm getting Old despite wanting to admit such and don't want to approach any decision foolishly.

There's a wealth of info in your responses and it's greatly appreciated.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life running wiring and trying to figure out how my stuff works or totally switching out gear every couple years. I want to listen to music that impresses me each time I sit down to listen to music no matter what the label is on the component.

[lasse]

Re: Might as well start another War....

Hello,

But in the end of the day.....

If you can avoid big amps (expensive and "brand-shiny") by choosing a better signal handling before and after the amps, you can put your dollars (pounds, yen, kronor, whatever..) where they more efficiently adds to the sound quality.

The next step for me is to hide the power-amps inside the speaker cabinets.

Or am I wrong??
Regards//lasse

[WmAx]

Re: Might as well start another War....

Greetings!

Reading the original thread, I would be very happy with the list of "getting into decent" amplifier brands listed. Have you considered a studio monitor amp? Something designed to be clean and quiet w/ no fan? I, personally, have a Crown D150A Series II amp (needs a new power switch) and am planning on either a Bryston stereo preamp or a small format studio mixer once I have the time/energy to clean out the spare bedroom and create a dedicated listening room for stereo playback.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/RA500/ should give you plenty of power and no fan noise for a very reasonable price.

As far as silent pro amps go, you might want to check out the Yamaha P2500S; it is around the same price, offers far more power(RA500 rated 1kHz, 8 Ohms, 150/channel; 1khz, 4 Ohms, 250/channel : P2500S rated 1kHz, 8 Ohms, 275/channel; 1kHz, 4 Ohms, 390/channel) and a lot more features. Plus it's rack mount ears come off for use in regular consumer audio racks. The Yamaha has no fan noise either, btw.

-Chris

[gvimhoof]

Re: Might as well start another War....

Greetings!

Reading the original thread, I would be very happy with the list of "getting into decent" amplifier brands listed. Have you considered a studio monitor amp? Something designed to be clean and quiet w/ no fan? I, personally, have a Crown D150A Series II amp (needs a new power switch) and am planning on either a Bryston stereo preamp or a small format studio mixer once I have the time/energy to clean out the spare bedroom and create a dedicated listening room for stereo playback.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/RA500/ should give you plenty of power and no fan noise for a very reasonable price.

[BasTek]

Re: Might as well start another War....

I have a high end dual mono integrated amp with all Alps controls and switches, and a QSC pro amp both connected to a A/B amp selector and there is no difference in sound from either amp, nothing - 0 - nada. Save some money and go Pro.

[mgrabow]

Re: Might as well start another War....

To me, the real issue is the ignorance spread wide that causes so many people to buy into the B.S. and waste $$ on part of the chain that has little influence where investment into the best speaker and room acoustics is where it really pays off.

-Chris

I agree on spending the budget on the speakers and the room. There are some source and preamp fanatics that will say "garbage in, garbage out" which is also true (unless you have a set of k-mart speakers on an amp that came free with a magazine subscription...). But for me switching from a marantz receiver to a good pre-amp and amp, was a huge difference...But I only paid $390 for a preamp that was $1900 new and $600 for an amp that was $3999 in its day.

[Æ]

Re: Might as well start another War....

To me, the real issue is the ignorance spread wide that causes so many people to buy into the B.S. and waste $$ on part of the chain that has little influence where investment into the best speaker and room acoustics is where it really pays off.

-Chris

Hey, I agree with him.
It's not wasted money if you can afford it and you gain satisfaction.

[mgrabow]

Re: Might as well start another War....

First I must question something in your thread

"Far from high end but getting into decent are a number of Amps. Immediately coming to mind are Emotiva, Bryston, Adcom, Pass Labs, Parasound, Phase Linear, Accuphase, Rotel, older Mac, Marl Levenson and Jeff Rowland."


Nelson Pass, Bryston, Mark Levenson, Jeff Rowland? Far from High End? Wow, if thats far from high end, I think your $2500 needs another zero...All great amps... You have good taste...

I myself would spend about $2000 on ebay for a Bryston 4b or less than a grand on a Threshold s300 (older Pass built amp).


$2500 new will not touch most of the ones I referenced at 150 watts.

I must also respectfully disagree with some on implying that you are wasting money in the $2000-$2500 range. Most (not all) of your high end amps are built with a "spare no expense" attitude that leads to the ultra high prices. When someone carves their face plate out of a solid piece of billet aluminum, they are exceeding the $100 case figure by about 3 times( just on the face plate). Hell the power switch alone on my Audio Research pre amp is $27.


I think you have some good taste in amps and when you buy a used amp that came new with a 20 year warranty, the manufacturer was confident it would last, so used is a safe bet... Provided you don't get scammed.

[mgrabow]

Re: Might as well start another War....

First I must question something in your thread

"Far from high end but getting into decent are a number of Amps. Immediately coming to mind are Emotiva, Bryston, Adcom, Pass Labs, Parasound, Phase Linear, Accuphase, Rotel, older Mac, Marl Levenson and Jeff Rowland."


Nelson Pass, Bryston, Mark Levenson, Jeff Rowland? Far from High End? Wow, if thats far from high end, I think your $2500 needs another zero...All great amps... You have good taste...

I myself would spend about $2000 on ebay for a Bryston 4b or less than a grand on a Threshold s300 (older Pass built amp).


$2500 new will not touch most of the ones I referenced at 150 watts.

I must also respectfully disagree with some on implying that you are wasting money in the $2000-$2500 range. Most (not all) of your high end amps are built with a "spare no expense" attitude that leads to the ultra high prices. When someone carves their face plate out of a solid piece of billet aluminum, they are exceeding the $100 case figure by about 3 times( just on the face plate). Hell the power switch alone on my Audio Research pre amp is $27.


I think you have some good taste in amps and when you buy a used amp that came new with a 20 year warranty, the manufacturer was confident it would last, so used is a safe bet... Provided you don't get scammed.

[DS-21]

Re: Might as well start another War....

I think if one is going to spend 2k USD or more for amplification, one should move out of the stone age and buy a modern product with a decent room correction program built in. (Unless one is choosing based on looks or brand snobbery or some other perfectly legitimate and reasonable reason unrelated to a desire for enhanced audio fidelity.)

Whatever differences may (but generally don't) exist between two similarly-powerful amps are absolutely tiny compared to the potentially huge improvements that a well-implemented room correction program can provide.

I personally prefer Audyssey MultEQ XT of the ones I've tried before, because it gives measurable and audible improvements even on good speakers that are well placed. But I've not tried them all. And the best modern receivers can drive pretty much any speaker short of 1980s Apogees.

[DDF]

Re: Might as well start another War....

I haven't heard enough amps to compare, but I think I could happily live with a Bryston SST. I have two (much) older Brystons and much preferred what I heard from the SST: no hardness at all.

Bryston also satisfies both sides of the brain, being technically excellent, but also sounding very nice (IMO). Its also a no muss/no fuss solution with a long warranty.

I also considered the Odyssey Stratos at one time. Great reviews but its huge and I've read reports that its a bit susceptible to bad ac.

[dusty]

Re: Might as well start another War....

parasound or ATI. but I would like to try emotiva monoblock. I remember a guy ask the post for a table saw and someone will say $200 tabale saw work fine and a guy with $2000 dollar don't think the saw is good enough. you will not get an answere for this kind of question.

[the kid]

Re: Might as well start another War....

If for once I would seriously think something through, I would approach this situation like this - what do I want to end up with, with the amount of money I have to spend? Am I going to be satisfied with all of the choices that fall into that budget?

Now, with that said, a person can / will drive themselves mad if they fall into the trap of always wanting what the other guy has. If this is the case, a decision may never be made. And one that is finally made, will not be good enough. (I have been leaning on this ledge since coming to diy here)

So many ways of getting there. Receiver; amp + preamp; 1 setup for music & 1 setup for movies... What do you need to do with the equipment? Can you make a comfortable compromise? Can you plan in any room for exchanges if your first choice is not good enough? Will this equipment be current enough for a couple of years down the road? (connections)

(a little personal) -
Do your research, but when you feel right about something, hold on to that idea. Don't toss it out because something else shiney just caught your eye. I have seen you give replies and advice to others and your opinions seem to hold merit. I think you have more knowledge and answers than you realize. It looks like subconsciously you have a virus program that keeps defeating yourself. You know good products, someone else adds to or confirms your ideas, yet you always do the "yeah, but what about this...".

So, I guess what I am replying as is this - what do you want in the end? Ask these guys ( I am not one for this ) and listen to your gut. You probably can't go wrong. I imagine there is a lot of good out there. Otherwise, everyone here would have the same thing.