One Amp To ‘Rule’ Them All....


Is there one amplifier that everyone can agree on as a contemporary standard? An amplifier that can be considered a standard in both the studio and in a home stereo setup?

What one amplifier does everything very well and can be found in homes and in professional audio engineering environments?

What amp covers all the bases and gives you a glimpse into all qualities of fine musical reproduction?

...something Yamaha? ...something McIntosh?

128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xbrettmcee
That’s a silly question. The only way to answer that, is to pick the greatest value product. Because it’s easy to see the greatest amps if you step into the $50k+ arena and start looking at amps like the CH Precision M1 ($94k) or the Gryphon Mephisto ($150k). But if you want an amp that an audiophile (audiophile being a person that will spend crazy money compared to someone else with the same budget) would realize is a game changer within reach, I’d go with the:

NuPrime Evolution One

https://totallywired.nz/nuprime-2/nuprime-evolution-one/

Ok ok ok....so I also think in trying to define an amp that is a common/standard point of reference, the amp needs to be somewhat common and affordable. 

Again I am not looking for the ‘perfect’ amp, I am looking for us to define an amp that does everything pretty well and consistently, and is something that pros and consumers have heard and can agree on as a competent piece of gear.

My goal: I am interested in being able to talk more specifically and exactingly about the different qualities we know and love in audio amplification. To do this we all need a common point of reference. It does not need to be perfect but must produce most or all of the qualities inherent in ‘quality’ amplification.

Why would this be adventageous? For one we could begin to define ‘how much more’ or ‘how much better’ one amp does something vs the common reference amplifier. This would help us make better choices and would probably even hep designers zero in on how to evolve certain qualities in amplification.

Adcom? Yamaha? Hafler?

There has got to be an amp that you could ‘live with’ that pros and consumer can agree upon.  Come on people!

Once we define/decide on this common reference amp we can all start doing so serious exploration!!!
The problem with humanity is individualism. (too much chaos, no order, no future)

The saving grace and answer in humanity is individualism. (chaos breaks free of dead perfected order and we gain a future)

The negative proofing ’no future’ analytical mind (turns back on it’s self via elevating the record into enforced dogma) attempts to commoditize...and make all things ’safe and known’. This is fear, plain and simple. The animal that tries to be logical and fails dismally. This is the area of applied science, the numbers end of the game, where good enough tries to represent all of reality as boxes of commodities. The monkey in the moment of fear and thus attempting to control life. It is actually prediction. Which works, but only up to a point. we gave it a name. We called it 'engineering'.

The creative mind, understands that facts don’t exist and are a figment of the imagination of the analytical mind. Oddly enough, this is the only fact we can ’prove’ is real -the one about facts not existing. Paradox, just like the true quantum nature of reality. This is the area of real actual science. Science which is all theory, and has a open mutable future...and most definitely a mutable past, as the past is the record, not the reality. That the record is the record it does not dictate the future’s course, it merely predicts a bit..here and there.

The creative mind discovers the new and forces the record to change according to the emergent understanding of the new. It lives not in fear, it lives in anticipation of the new. That’s real and actual science. It can understand the analytical mind and sympathize with it, but also understands that applied science (engineering) needs a whack in the head every now and then to free up it’s insanity in engineering’s attempts in boxing, permanence, dogma and commoditization.

It is absolutely imperative that people understand the difference between the two.

To not mistake dogmatic numbers and engineering for real and actual science. Engineering is designed from the ground up to be dogma, science is designed from the ground up to the not be closed but open to change ---and is the change itself.

When exploring the new and the unknown and the contestable, like here in audio, it is imperative to not let the analytical numerically oriented dogmatic engineering mind -get a hold of the conversation, as it will reduce it to projections of lies and show you the numbers to prove it. I’m not sure it is possible to be more blind and wrong headed than that.

If one allows it.... the whole world will slow to a stop and circle in on itself, close the door to the future...and remain in the box it knows and is comfortable with. You’ll be somone’s comfortable commodity at that point.

Engineering makes us ’safe’. But dead, as it is without change, without mutability, without the new.

Science enables the potential for the existence of a future.
Try the new Soulution 330 intergrated amp . And forget about the down payment on a house
Brettmcee,

Even if we disregard opinion on sound quality, I don't think you will find any particular amp that a majority of people have actually heard.  I bet even the most common and long-lived amps have not been heard by more than 10% of the populace.  So, at a starting point, you might want to survey how many people have heard certain candidates.  I can offer the NAD 3020, Crown DC 300, Dynaco ST-70, McIntosh 275, and Adcom GFA 555 as sort of serious gear that where somewhat widely experienced (i.e., not including stuff like Bose tabletop models).