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Is there actually a difference?

Speakers sound different - that is very obvious. But I’ve never experienced a drastic change between amps. Disclaimer that I’ve never personally ABX tested any extremely high end gear.

With all these articles claiming every other budget amp is a "giant killer", I’ve been wondering if there has ever been blind tests done with amplifiers to see if human ears can consistently tell the difference. You can swear to yourself that they do sound different, but the mind is a powerful thing, and you can never be sure unless it’s a truly blind test.

One step further - even IF we actually can tell the difference and we can distinguish a certain amp 7/10 times under extreme scrutiny, is it really worth the thousands you are shelling out to get that nearly-imperceivable .01% increase in performance?

Not looking to stir up any heated debate. I’ve been in audio for several years now and have always thought about this.
asianatorizzle

Showing 2 responses by treynolds155

treynolds155
27 posts
 
I have two SS amps in my system that I swap back and forth. Perhaps not a fair comparison but one is a Threshold S200 I use for serious music listening and the other is a Parasound Zamp V3 which is used for casual listening and tv. The Zamp is very well reviewed and is considered to punch way above it's pay grade. That said...the Threshold destroys it in every category and I'm sure I could pick it out 100% of the time in a blind test. 

I recently picked up a set of Acoustic Zen Hologram II speaker cables and I can hear a very nice improvement while connected to the Threshold. I cannot hear any difference while connected to the Parasound. 

Like I said probably not a fair comparison, swap the Zamp out with JC1s or JC5s and I'm sure the differences wouldn't be so stark. My point is of course there are differences, class A alone puts a SS amp in another category. I want to try a tube amp next :)
treynolds155
27 posts
 
tomfoolery,
Very interesting info, I'm not familiar with level matching....will have to look into that. And this is a great discussion for me as it's primarily what I'm concentrating my efforts on now. Here's been my experiences...just my two pennies.
  1. The very best system I've heard had a tube amp. Not going to argue the merits/faults of tubes but it just sounded incredibly musical and captivating to me. 
  2. The next best systems I've heard had class A amps. They seemed to come close to the sound of tube amps.
  3. A/B amps of various brands and quality seem like they can get closer to a class A amp. 
  4. Class D I have no hands on experience with other than what I've read. 
So my "unicorn" system would have the efficiency of Class D, would sound like a tube amp, but would also be able to be switched to sound like A/AB for home theatre and some types of music. Impossible I know, just wanted to expand on the OP's question of differences and hear other's thoughts on the above "class warfare" lol. 
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