My experience has been that the only way to INITIALLY "home-in" on the differences between reasonably accurate electronics, in an efficient manner, is to listen to high quality audiophile-caliber recordings with which you are very familiar. Preferably recordings of unamplified instruments and/or human voice, recorded in a good hall, recorded with a minimal number of microphones, and minimal post-processing.
Once your consciousness has identified and homed in on the differences, it will then be more readily possible to hear those differences on a much wider range of material. You will then, and only then, be in a position to decide if they really matter to you, or are worth the extra cost.
As we all know, some people claim that all amplifiers sound the same, within their power capabilities. And at the other extreme, some people claim "huge" differences can result from reversing the orientation of an amplifier's ac line fuse. For 99.9% of us, I think it is safe to say that the truth lies somewhere in between those extremes, and will depend on the listener's hearing, the listener's sense of what is important in music reproduction, the other components in the system, the room, the type of music being listened to, and the quality of the recordings being listened to.
I suggest following the initial approach I described above, if you are not already, and resisting the temptation to judge until you have done so.
Regards,
-- Al
Once your consciousness has identified and homed in on the differences, it will then be more readily possible to hear those differences on a much wider range of material. You will then, and only then, be in a position to decide if they really matter to you, or are worth the extra cost.
As we all know, some people claim that all amplifiers sound the same, within their power capabilities. And at the other extreme, some people claim "huge" differences can result from reversing the orientation of an amplifier's ac line fuse. For 99.9% of us, I think it is safe to say that the truth lies somewhere in between those extremes, and will depend on the listener's hearing, the listener's sense of what is important in music reproduction, the other components in the system, the room, the type of music being listened to, and the quality of the recordings being listened to.
I suggest following the initial approach I described above, if you are not already, and resisting the temptation to judge until you have done so.
Regards,
-- Al