Debate: Amplifiers

[Ryan from Ohio]

Boy its getting hot in here!

http://www.caraudioforum.com/vbb3/showt ... p?t=239855

If anyone cares to jump in. Especialy our more technicaly inclined folks.

Im at the limit of my scope. I just plain dont agree with them.

Here is the sum of the argument they are making:

"For sub woofers it doesnt matter if I use a cheapo product. It doesnt matter if its Class A/B or Class D. Providing it makes the rated power claimed, they will all virtualy sound the same."

[GlassWolf]

within the amplifier's (and it's power supply's) limitations, they are correct. Efficiency aside, if you're within the capabilities of the amplifier, and not clipping, or driving the power supply to it's limits, a watt is a watt, and any two amplifiers will sound the same on a sub. Richard Clark pretty much proved this with his amplifier challenge.

The trick here is finding out how much power your particular amp can actually put out, at what load, before it does clip, or the power supply does reach it's limits.

I'm not going back over there however. CAF is such a waste of time, I'd rather masturbate with a cheese grater than go back over there and deal with Feandil and that silly bitch that one user knocked up.

Using 1% toleranced MilSpec components, in an amplifier and a good board design, and so forth will speak more to how much headroom the amp will have at it's rated output, and how long the amp will last, more than how it'll sound. Ideally an amplifier wil be transparent, and not color the output at all in the audible spectrum. The trick to that is designing a good amp, and having things like a power supply capable of producing at least three times the voltage the amplifier will need to produce it's RMS rated output.

[Justin from Detroit1]

So as long as they are rated the same power, a Pyraid amp could sound as good as my ARC amps?

[GlassWolf]

the "rating" is the issue.

as long as both actually produce, say 50 or 100 watts, and are well within the limits of their respective power supplies, (which generally mans not being pushed to full output) then yes, you'd not be able to tell them apart in a double-blind test.
Note however, this is with everything else being equal.. same speakers, rossovers and slopes, no signal processing like bass boost, etc.

Sickening I know, but your Arcs will offer better build quality, and longevity, as well as better cooling, etc. The places you'd really see any difference though is on paper, like THD, and not in what you can actually hear.

[lotas]

Well I read this post about two hours ago and decided to sell all my nice stuff and just went and bought a full Sony XPLOD system at Circuit City. That was a joke.

But seriously I've never been to CAF but I just took a peek over there and I was amazed...half of them sound like they're in 8th grade and uneducated, one guy even said, regarding a Kenwood amp, it "Got my speakers to make sound".

BTW Ryan your arguements have been awesome, I'm so entertained down at work right now lol This guy is a complete moron. A little naif.

I'm also extremely proud of myself for knowing everything you were talking about, aside from SNR S/n ! And I think I'm gonna congradulate myself by buying myself something, so thank you lol

[Justin from Detroit1]

Yah, CAF is terrible

[smoker]

I'd rather masturbate with a cheese grater than go back over there and deal with Feandil and that silly bitch that one user knocked up.

this really provides us with a lot of insight......

Note however, this is with everything else being equal.. same speakers, rossovers and slopes, no signal processing like bass boost, etc.

i have to agree with this so long as everything is equal........damping factor....s/n ratio.........slew rate and thd......of course this argument is in my opinion a given as long as everything is equal....its the inequalities that make the difference.....i didnt pop over and look at caf because ive never found anything useful over there but i may go check this out

[lotas]

this really provides us with a lot of insight......
i have to agree with this so long as everything is equal........damping factor....s/n ratio.........slew rate and thd......of course this argument is in my opinion a given as long as everything is equal....its the inequalities that make the difference.....i didnt pop over and look at caf because ive never found anything useful over there but i may go check this out

You probably just get frustrated and come back upset lol The ignorance is so strong over there you can smell it from the link.

[Jonathan]

this really provides us with a lot of insight......
i have to agree with this so long as everything is equal........damping factor....s/n ratio.........slew rate and thd......of course this argument is in my opinion a given as long as everything is equal....its the inequalities that make the difference.....i didnt pop over and look at caf because ive never found anything useful over there but i may go check this out

Note he wasn't referring to damping, s/n, slew rate, thd having to be equal. You still wouldn't notice a difference. These are the things people are trying to prove make a difference in amplifier SQ, and they haven't been able to do this in double blind testing despite RC's incentive. One of the biggest debates is tube vs. transistor amps, where tubes have far less damping, higher THD, typically higher S/N ratio, so on and so forth. There isn't a place where a transistor amp can't best a tube on a testbench. The subjectivism comes when harmonics due to clipping pop their head out, that's the only way you'll hear any difference unless the amplifier is so horrible that you could hear static at any given level (or turn on pops, things like that ). Glass is talking about all other things set equal, primarily matching power output, speaker impedance, boosts, cuts, so on and so forth.

Unfortunately, it's a situation where you can have a crap amp be equal to a good one in any given application as long as you put effort toward it. The only thing that a controlled test environment dictates is correct gain setting, giving sufficient power to the amplifiers, essentially that the amplifier is ideally configured. If comparing amplifiers, then you're assuring that both are putting out equal power for the comparison. Isn't this something everyone, regardless of equipment quality, should strive for? I feel it's worse to blame the car environment for inconsistencies in amplifier performance than a controlled environment, because the characteristics of a controlled environment should be what you want to achieve in a car. Not something to use in an argument, IMO. Both amps putting out the same power on the same drivers, a $3500 Brax amplifier isn't going to sound a bit different than some Dual/Jensen stuff you got at a flea market.

[Jonathan]

My beliefs:

I'll note that I believe that the performance of any amplifier can be summed up by testing. I do not believe there is a single unexplainable subjective quality to an amplifier. I don't, nor will I ever, drive hundreds of miles to audition an amplifier as I feel it's pointless. Perhaps if they let me gut it and see the componentry, but I have complete confidence buying an amplifier I've never heard before as long as I look at the engineering and material/build quality.

I feel this same potential exists for speakers as well. We know all of the concepts of driver design, but where we fall short is our inability to represent driver characteristics to an extent to determine the final result without listening. I don't think it's really due to things we don't know, but rather the high number of variables taht have to be taken into account for the final result. I feel that if you had a driver that measures exactly the same as another driver when using all existing test methods, they'll sound exactly the same. After all, the only way an engineer can see what he needs to improve upon is by testing a driver and seeing known specifications, then finding ways to make it perform better. Look at the difference between, say, a JL Audio W6AE vs the W6v2. The difference is the optimization of the entire driver through FEA analysis, and the driver measures considerably better, and sounds that much better as a result.