Well, 2 reasons. I don't know if the offer still stands, but he offers $10,000 to anyone who can pass his test.
If you win you can buy an amp with that money :).
Second reason, to add to the body of knowledge that exists in the public domain. People use references to his information to suggest that amp A vs amp B - there is no difference as long as they fit certain basic criteria. And he does acknowledge certain features, like if it makes a big thud on starting that is less desireable than otherwise.
If he is right, great, lets spread that knowledge. If he is wrong, well, then lets figure that out and put the issue to bed!
Also - here is a long thread (you can waste maybe a whole 2 hours on this! :) ) - lets no rehash what has already been discussed. There are lots of these.
http://www.audiogroupforum.com/csforum//showthread.php?t=2759
So - bottom line - can we differentiate an X350.5 vs a $20 amp from radio shack using Magnepan 20.1s? (or whatever is cheapest 4 ohm amp). |
Cool - so do a 'home test' if you have the couple hours. (btw, that is a *very* cool looking amp.) Have someone get 12 tracks (I think that is what he suggests) put a sheet up over your stuff and have someone do the switching. Do the full abx test as he describes. He is picky about getting all 12 right.
I'm going to try it in next few days out of personal interest. One problem, though, is that reading enough info about this - a few people have gotten all 12 right, then he does level adjusting to within 1/10 of a db and then they don't pass the 2nd time. He doesn't like to start with all that level matching just because it takes a while. So keep that in mind - and this isn't in question - mild increases in volume can make piece A sound better than B whether it is CD player or whatever.
If you get it right, maybe you can make 10k. Or maybe its just bunk. I'll know more when I do the tests in a few days, maybe this weekend. |
So, I've been looking for the 'cheapest' 4-Ohm rated amplifier I can find. This is one candidate:
http://www.onkyousa.com/model.cfm?m=TX-8222&p=i&class=Receiver
I have nothing against Onkyo - I was hoping for a much lower brand, but that is a $150 receiver and is rated at 4 OHMs for use, and should sound different than the high end Pass Labs stuff.
One of the problems I'm having is:
9. The amps will not be overloaded during the session from either a voltage or current requirement.
So, part of the Maggie 'thing' is that many amps would be current overloaded, and that is part of the point of getting an expensive amp. I do have a multimeter and could detect the amps or voltage at the terminals, but don't have the electronics to determine if the current will be overloaded on the cheaper amp.
All of this leads me to believe that the issue may be in the definition of the problem - you have to at least get to the Harmon Kardon/Rotel/NAD level to drive ribbons, electrostatics, or quasi-ribbon speakers without overloading the amp. A more interesting test might be, given a really really solid 1k amp, can 10 people detect the difference between that and a 10k amp - that is a much more subtle thing, but lets start here and see if we can resolve the $150 amp vs best amps in the world first.
And, regardless, I want to get 90% or better on the test (not necessarily 12/12 as is required for the 10k - but I do agree I would get 12/12 if I were comparing apples to oranges, which is what he is saying we say about amps and if I were giving away 10k I might also say 12/12.)
If anyone knows a 'worse' receiver or amp that says 4 Ohms somehwere in its manual let me know. |
Oem - I think your point about Carver actually possibly supports what this guy is saying. Remember, the premise here is that he will use an EQ in front of one amp to make it sound like the other to eliminate soft top or bottom ends. He agrees that some amps are softer or stronger on top or bottom end etc., and says that this is not the main thing people are saying is better or worse about amps - he says other people are saying there are other aspects of amps that are better/worse in sound quality other than what can be adjusted with an EQ.
Anyway its just a few hours (hopefully) to conduct this test this weekend, so here goes. And of course, I'm not going to frequency EQ the 2 amps like he would, but at least I want to make sure I can hear the difference between the stock forms of 2 amps. |
Soundlabs are probably better for this as they are rated at 8 ohms, then I could very easily get a $40 amp versus the 4-ohm rated ones which are of higher quality. |
Agreed overall. Maybe an extremely minor impact. But, I like academics! And I do have the belief that if we all have similar logical patterns and similar data people should generally eventually come to the same conclusions - I know I'm a hopeless philosophical optimist in that way, but I enjoy life from this perspective more. I am very aware it rarely happens in real life.
Okay - so I found the perfect amplifier. (Well - this is in the 8-Ohm region, but useful for reasons you will see nonetheless. The Onkyo is still the lowest budget 4-ohm I can find.) It is called the "iSymphony Micro Music System". It is 29.99 and has a whopping 14 watts, and weighs about a fourth of a pound.
At 85 db sensitivity for my 3.6s, If I calculate right, that gets me to around 96 db - not precise calc, but close. Plenty loud!
Then, sitting in Radio Shack holding this thing in my hand, I thought about something. First of all, of course this thing will stink up my living room with its sound at 96 db. Actually - what would be really fun is to see if I could melt it after 4 hrs of 96db playing. Okay - but I was thinking. And this relates to the requirement I am imposing to use Maggies for the test. Again, we have to remember what he is saying very specifically:
9. The amps will not be overloaded during the session from either a voltage or current requirement.
The trick about electrostatics is that they are hard to drive. So if he is going to hook up electronics to the cheap amps to see when they are overloaded and say 'its overloaded, you can't run it this loud' because he is working with the real watt number vs published and it is far less - in this case maybe 4 watts per channel instead of the claimed 14 (14 might be both channels, so that is 7, then lets say they overestimated by 2x), and then with Maggie 20s or 3.6s we end up at some super low db, and I can barely hear the music let alone differentiate it, then that might be the thing!
Megabuck amps don't overload as easily. Even Pass Amps - take the XA100 vs XA100.5 - the 100-not-point-five was an 8-ohm amp and didn't double down into 4 ohms. The 0.5 added that, if I understand correctly by adding output devices to support the increased low-ohm load. So even the 100 vs 100.5, on a 2-ohm or 4-ohm speaker driven really hard should sound different, let alone compared to a 29.99 receiver. The Aleph 3 was tested by Stereophile as stable into 1-ohm and lower loads.
Okay - so this is somewhat interesting. The use of his challenge/research into these issues comes out as statements such as "all amps within their ranges sound the same" and for electrostatics we might find that on the 'possibly correct' side, but *irrelevant*. Because we have to spend a certain amount of money to get an amp where the "within their ranges" produces music loud enough to enjoy.
Shostakovitch's 8th, 3rd movement, for example. I think he is simulating bombs or early WWII rockets coming down during the siege of Stalingrad or some other battle, and for that half second the music might be 95 or 105 db or something, whereas it is 85 before and after. If our requirement is that those parts sound perfect (isn't that why we get expensive stuff - so it is sounds great at the extremes?) So now, the requirement is 105 db stability at 4 ohms. Not easy! That is 85+20 db, so 9*3 is larger than 20, so 1 doubled 9 times is 1->2->4->8->16->23->64->128->256->512. That is a lot of watts! And we are talking real watts, not marketing watts.
I'll try and get a read on the db of the peaks during that piece if I can tonight.
Not sure if I still want to do any tests this weekend, I've resolved in my mind the issue of $50 and $100 dollar amps/receivers compared to Pass equipment.
The issue of a $1k amp vs a $5k amp is another matter that I'm not interesting in starting a discussion on here. That remains open, and his testing methodology might be interesting (in that it adds an EQ and thus suggests that all of what we feel are important differences may in fact be resolved through TACT/Rives type high quality EQ equipment) for that question.
Note that 'tube experts' have failed his test comparing tubes to solid state (let alone Class A to Class B to Class D solid state) because his eq was able to make the SS state amp sound like the tube amp or vice versa, don't know which way he went.
So, in summary, things decided:
1) Personal Claim: His methodology so far seems sound within its own realm - within its stated claims and limitations
2) Fact: Hard to drive speakers require serious amps
3) Fact: Serious amps are generally more expensive
4) Conclusion: It is worth buying expensive amps if you want good sound from hard to drive speakers
5) Conclusion: His 'all amps are the same' testing methodology has nothing to offer us pro *or* con in terms of #2 - 4 above - it doesn't deal with those issues at all
Things still open:
1) Do amps play a part in non-EQ-alterable sound artifacts, like soundstaging for example.
2) If we think they do, then can we ABX our way through identifying them?
Don't discuss those here, however! Lets leave this thread focused on super-cheap amps versus amazing amps used with electrostatics.
Well, that was time well spent, no?
:) |
While I was composing Drubin's comment got in there. So 'agreed overall' with both of them - but I was referring to MrTennis originally. |
Yeah, exactly. I just did the (dynamics, not amp a vs b) test mentioned above, and on the Shostakovitch disk got a couple of 105 db peaks and many, many over 100 db on a nominal level of 78 db. I was using fast / C weighting. Quite dynamic! I probably had it a little high - the level I normally listen to that track with has it opening at 76 db or so. And the meter can't really keep up with the quick changes - so it might be a tiny bit higher. |
MrTennis and Atmasphere - give the guy a call. Here is one page with the info. Win the jackpot that a couple thousand people haven't won of $10,000 that he offers for winning!
http://www.tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/index.htm
But note that some of the things you mention (high frequency content; the sense of 'brightness') are things he will make equal with his eq, no?
The soundstage and attack (and perhaps decay as well?) - those are the places you might get it right. If you do give it a try I've heard from reading the threads about it that tracks with lots of voices tend to score higher, so include some voice stuff. But be confident, he charges 200 to take the test to limit serious requests. :) |
Douglas - great last post.
Atma - hadn't heard he refused to pay, would be interesting to see more on that, and who finally broke the test!! If it was a regular Joe, magazine reviewer, or just snobby audiophile like us :).
To the equipment switching issue: I know for a while Stereophile was using the Mark Levinson 320S for various comparisons because it has the ability to somehow level match per input, I don't know the exact details, but that wasn't a cheap pre at retail! (And one I strongly considered getting before getting a Supratek. And while I'm off topic the Joule Electra line pre looks amazing...) My understanding is that the guy has a recording engineering or electronics background and part of the thing per the link above is that he runs the amps under 2% THD, so for some on electrostatics that may be 60 db :), but just to say he has equipment to measure THD and all kinds of little doo-dads, and high quality switching stuff - but that is all conjecture as I haven't seen any of it. Completely agreed that how you switch will matter, and if sound is degraded - on earbuds CD ripped Flac and apple lossless sound the same, so agreed that if one part of the chain is low-level differences will be minimized.
To some comments just above about car audio - I have felt that some high end car audio has extremely good dynamics as far as comparing to home audio - that is one area where car audio does really well.
For people just reading to the end my personal conclusions is that you have to look at his constraints really really carefully. Under his constraints I think he might be right. But then if you look at his constraints and consider driving a large electrostatic speaker to concert levels, then his constraints take away some of the most imoprtant differences bewteen amps. I decided that I might very well fail his test between the Sherwood receiver I found that claims 4 ohms capability and was like $75 bucks and a Nelson Pass pure Class A 150-lb dual pair of monoblocks because under his test criteria we may not get over 55 db.
Part of his point is that amps do a particular thing, and he can eq all the 'warmth' and stuff like that out of them, he seems to think he knows precisely what an amp does and that it doesn't effect things like soundstage or some of the other 'qualities' that we ascribe to all audio equipment. He does agree that speakers, CD Players, etc., even pre-amps make a difference, but he is making a claim just about how amplifiers work, by degree from a scientific perspective, that they do one thing only, and that one thing shouldn't have an effect on some of the fuzzier criteria we ascribe to audio equipment - *and to which he does ascribe to other pieces in the chain*.
Also - everyone here - this makes me think that Parc may really be on to something. In Photography there are programs that can make digital images sort of look like various film emulsions like Velvia or Kodachrome (for those not in photograpy, films with very particular characteristics) - maybe Parc could add to its system a setting for 'mimic tube amp', 'mimic solid state amp', etc. As it is it allows for tons of adjustments that are sort of along the lines of what they guy here seems to be doing.
Parc is high quality analogue, and me with my supratek I'm not going digital pre anytime soon, but the other thing this makes me think of is some basically 99.9999% lossless Parc device embedded in a megabuck DAC/CD/digitalPre that does everything once in the digital domain and then *once* and once only goes from digital to analogue to the amp. Esoteric, EmmLabs, Meridian, Berkeley, Levinson etc. kind of companies, they could put out something like that.
Parc should 'lease' their technology for digital embedding in the total digital side just as chip companies like Burr Brown, etc. sells DAC chips to these companies and they would make money there and from the customization/consulting they do.
So one of the biggest conclusions I'm coming to from thinking through the Richard Clarke stuff is that Parc, and perhaps digital eq embedded early in the chain, might have a strong future in Audiophile land... |
