I too have followed this thread and was interested to read an engineering/scientific point of view as to why a higher powered amp has the potential to be more refined when it has more amplifying devices. And I feel Mr. Greenman made a fair and honest attempt to explain this. As for him being labeled a pompous bully, I don't see the justification for this at all. At least he has the integrity to sign his name here.
As for the use of huge fonts, I suspect it is due to his frustration that his measured lab results are at significant odds with claims by others on device linearity, semiconductor theory, etc., that are more based on home and audio shop listening experiences, magazine reports, etc., than bench testing.
It's always unfortunate when a thread of potential value results in a game of "I can write and speak better than you, so my advice to you is to not even bother trying to beat me here". It matters to me not at all how someone speaks in court as it's all a game of whose more clever with words and very little substance there anyway. But trying to discern why and how two amplifiers of a same company may sound different strictly due to the number of power output devices....now, we have some substance. And the simplicity of a set of graphs comparing device linearity, should be rather straight forward to present even to a court room.....well, one where the judge or jury has at least some level of technical competence. But I'm not even going to get into that.
If I went to an audio shop and the sound of a $200k system was no match for a system in another room, at a fraction of that cost, the only conclusion I'd make is that the owner of that shop needs to get in that high priced room and find out what is wrong. Until that was resolved, I would not give a lot of credit to the shop owner beyond his/her ability to throw high-priced products together in an attempt to impress others. And if I did suspect it was an amplifier fault or difference, I would definitely want to hear another amplifier in that system in an attempt to eliminate the amp as the cause of the problem or lack of "musicality".
Oh, and the issue of linear amplification ........ ah yes, the Convergent Audio Technology JL series.
John
As for the use of huge fonts, I suspect it is due to his frustration that his measured lab results are at significant odds with claims by others on device linearity, semiconductor theory, etc., that are more based on home and audio shop listening experiences, magazine reports, etc., than bench testing.
It's always unfortunate when a thread of potential value results in a game of "I can write and speak better than you, so my advice to you is to not even bother trying to beat me here". It matters to me not at all how someone speaks in court as it's all a game of whose more clever with words and very little substance there anyway. But trying to discern why and how two amplifiers of a same company may sound different strictly due to the number of power output devices....now, we have some substance. And the simplicity of a set of graphs comparing device linearity, should be rather straight forward to present even to a court room.....well, one where the judge or jury has at least some level of technical competence. But I'm not even going to get into that.
If I went to an audio shop and the sound of a $200k system was no match for a system in another room, at a fraction of that cost, the only conclusion I'd make is that the owner of that shop needs to get in that high priced room and find out what is wrong. Until that was resolved, I would not give a lot of credit to the shop owner beyond his/her ability to throw high-priced products together in an attempt to impress others. And if I did suspect it was an amplifier fault or difference, I would definitely want to hear another amplifier in that system in an attempt to eliminate the amp as the cause of the problem or lack of "musicality".
Oh, and the issue of linear amplification ........ ah yes, the Convergent Audio Technology JL series.
John