The most critical component in a system, the power amp?

[Newman]

This isn't a matter of personal opinion or anecdotal rationales. The optimal duration of A/B switching has been tested for acuity or perceptiveness. It simply goes down and down as interval goes up, beyond the optimum, which IIRC is in the region of 10 seconds.

[Chill3]

IMO - the various components have different impacts on musical enjoyment 

 

Loudspeakers no doubt have the biggest variance in frequency response and measured distortion - this may or may not actually be important in musical enjoyment, some of the world best speakers measure like shite, but have singular strengths in specific areas

 

however amps and source components seem to effect more subtle and perhaps more important things 

 

I am definitely in the camp that believes of a very good source and very good amp with good speakers will be better than an OK source ann OK amp with great speakers

[sir sanders zingmore]

If a friend or acquaintance rings you and says "it's me" most of the time we immediately know who it is without them saying thier name. I think our auditory memory is better than we think it is.

We all examine gear in different ways, like our hobby, it is also subjective. I have been on the end of AB testing many times and most of the time the differences don't matter. That's becaude there is always a compromise. You gain one thing and lose another. No gear is perfect, it just suits us better for where we are now in our listening journey. Tomorrow, next week or ten years from now we start another journey. becoming tired of inplace gear usually means in the end our taste has shifted and we are now finding something else is exciting us. I guess it is both the beauty and curse of this hobby.

When demoing gear to others I never play the same track on the two pieces of equipment under test but similar tracks from the same CD, LP or whatever. Only ever three or four tracks on each CD and all very different. Generally the second time you hear the same track on another piece of equipment it will sound better. That's our auditory memory saying " I've heard that before, I know that and it makes me feel good, this time". We are being fooled by our clever minds.

It's like relationships. The first two dates are fun but after a long while with someone likes and dislikes become more obvious.

Next time I'm ABing cables, I'll ring you up and you can tell me over the phone, which one is better

[davewantsmoore]

frequency response and measured distortion - this may or may not actually be important in musical enjoyment

 

This is so well researched it's hardly even discussed any more.

[sir sanders zingmore]

This is so well researched it's hardly even discussed any more.

The abilities of audiophiles are beyond the ken of human science.

[theking]

To me, my ears by a country mile.

 

For me, ears, period. This overwrites everything.

 

Any component you change in your source, cable, to speakers, it will likely to have impact on output of your system.

 

If the question is more like what is the biggest impact of component change in your system, i will say  "speakers".

[davewantsmoore]

Before anyone jumps .... I don't mean to say that if it doesn't have X distortion and a flat frequency response..... that you can't or shouldn't enjoy it.    (I enjoy heaps of stuff which isn't 'good').

 

What I mean is that if we improve the audio quality, by using the well researched and well understood methods  (lowering distortion below required thresholds and removing errors from the frequency response) ..... that is becomes obviously better, and there is normally very little disagreement.    I've seen it happen day in day out over the years spent building a 'better' speaker.

 

 

"Marketing" and "hype" has led the average audio consumer (or at least the "common wisdom" of the audio consumers) to "mistrust science".    Which is somewhat of a shame.     Things marketed as "low distortion".... weren't often low distortion where it counted  (digital playback, and/or THD ....  a perfect example) ..... speakers or room correction marketed as flat frequency response, weren't flat where it counted   (they're often made flat on only one axis, using EQ).

 

 

 

Anyways, back to work.

[Guest Eggcup The Daft]

The abilities of audiophiles are beyond the ken of human science.

Science (including, of course, social science in this case) probably knows far more about the abilities of audiophiles than it does about the hard system.

 

In other words, tell me again, how the electrical signal really "moves along the wire" between components, and how does a transistor really work?

[Guest Muon]

Different thing.... a voice pattern is much more basic and fundamental ....  as opposed to analysing whether A sounded better (or even different) to B ... when A and B are quite close, and there is a time delay.

 

 

 

 

Are we are all clones?.......how else can it be that everyone is identical in these things as you suggest. I would suggest that everyone is different regarding audio memory..........but some will carry on believing that we are Goldfish.

 

I think the main problem is that there are many things that are really NOT well understood, regardless of what some people think, or what the so called experts say

[Chill3]

This is so well researched it's hardly even discussed any more.

 

Perhaps - never seen much research that focused on musical enjoyment ( as opposed to sound quality which is a whole different think IMO)

 

Some very musical equipment songs wonderfully musical and measures poorly - some very good measuring equipment sounds shite

 

Some desk top radios give musical satisfaction

[Cichlabxr]

Is what the OP is really asking? Which part of the system should be used as the constant so that all subsequent tests can be replicated and the variables measured?

[Timos]

For me, it's the drink I have in my hand.

 

Currently a Pure Blonde beer.

[Guest Muon]

For me, it's the drink I have in my hand.

 

Currently a Pure Blonde beer.

OK, I had a reply for that, but after careful consideration...was deemed not family friendly

[LunchieTey]

Sound is influenced in this order of importance IMO,

1 speakers

2 room and room treatment and speaker placement

3 source quality (assuming the lowest quality is already reasonable,no 64kb mp3 haha)

4 amplifier,i put this below source as any decent amplifier should be capable of driving the vast majority of speakers and should by rights have a flat response withing the audible band. Anything less and your amp is crap regardless of price. If it struggles with certaim impedences or loads it has a poor power supply. You wouldn't drive a car that can only drive on level ground would you?

5 source unit (referring to CD only) as even a cheapass basic brand name cd player or bluray player can give extraordinarily low distortion and with a good recording will be within small % of the accuracy of the best players. Using an external linear DAC makes differences even smaller.

Last of all are cables. Once you reach a basic level of quality, above that is just crap. If your new rca changes the sound, it is because it is introducing its own colouration to the signal.

Anything else is just crap and you're wasting your money because you think its 'special'

Even saw one guy use spacers to keep the cables off the floor to stop the earths magnetic field from affecting them. This bloke would simply not accept that the earths magnetic field does not stop at his carpet and infact reaches well outside of our atmosphere. If you sold him audiophile anti magnet field carpet for $100000 a meter he would buy it.

Edited March 6, 2015 by LunchieTey

[Guest Muon]

@@LunchieTey

 

Even your cheap cables are colouring the sound............IMO

 

Can I ask what you consider basic level of quality? As this can mean something different to each person

 

Edit: Actually, everything in your system is lending It's own sonic signature to the sound, everything from start to end. It's inescapable, unless It's some form of magic, and we all know magic does not exist.

Edited March 6, 2015 by ortofun

[gainphile]

The biggest factor is the speakers (and room if you must).

 

Example: have tiny 5" stand mount speakers. Try amp A, B, C.... sounds so so...

 

Then change the speakers to 10", 12" or ... 18". WHOOAA we have a concert

[Once was an audiophile]

The biggest factor is the speakers (and room if you must).

Example: have tiny 5" stand mount speakers. Try amp A, B, C.... sounds so so...

Then change the speakers to 10", 12" or ... 18". WHOOAA we have a concert

Your listening for wow factor amp changes give you this is music factor [emoji122]

[LunchieTey]

@,

By basic level of quality I mean above the cheapo black rca's etc you get with a TV/cd/Blu-ray player etc. The copper quality and shielding will be poor meaning a negative effect on sound. I mean if you went to a retailer and bought a $50 1m rca cable or made your own from reasonable cable and connectors it should essentially be at a point where it should transfer all of the signal without degradation. Same for speaker cables, a basic level for me is say 12-14ga thickness cables of 99.9% ofc should be as good as needed for any reasonable speaker system at 100wrms of power and 3m per side. Obviously the super thin 1cent/m hook up wire supplied with a Chinese mini system is going to effect sound quality as the copper will be impure, and it has no current capacity being so thin.

Obviously if you run 1kw of power over 50m to a 2 ohm load, then yes you need heavier cables etc to carry the current without losses etc.

Many of the esoteric cables manufactured are all using pseudo science and marketing ploys to make their cable seem super special and a lot of it is psychological. Some believe that if the banana plug weighs 100g vs 1g it means better conductivity even if both have the same contact area and construction material. Same if the jacket is nice or if it has a braided cover over it to look pretty. I personally admit some of these cables sure class-up a hifi system an look lovely(same as braded fuel lines on a polished chrome engine on a car etc) but are only there to 'add value' so you feel better for handing over $1k for $10 of copper. Copper is the best conductor of electricity on the planet and it can only be so pure. Anything else is actually imposing a different resitance/capacitance/inductance and is in effect, a very basic passive equaliser(even though many audiophiles will turn their nose up at ACTUAL equalisation as it should be PURE etc)

My point is that swapping RCAs for say a warmer sound means the original set/new set is imposing a change in system response which is likely due to poor conductivity, some resistance or higher/lower capacitance in the cable. This to me is still just distortion, just a linear kind.

I personally prefer no signal loss all the way through the chain but that's just me. A nice gauge conductor, high purity copper(which I will ad is NOT expensive to produce) cable will provide all the signal transfer you ever need.

It's kind of a contradiction for many audiophiles, they want absolute purity of sound yet impose various signal changes by varying components like cables, and amplifiers. If they were all actually linear in frequency response and amplitude response(dynamic ability) you should actually hear no change.

[LunchieTey]

The biggest factor is the speakers (and room if you must).

 

Example: have tiny 5" stand mount speakers. Try amp A, B, C.... sounds so so...

 

Then change the speakers to 10", 12" or ... 18". WHOOAA we have a concert

I agree, speakers have the most variation in many ways, not just response, but also radiating area, impulse response, cone area, room excitation, dynamic ability, compression(thermal and mechanical) etc etc etc.

Two speakers measurning fairly flat can sound dramatically different in a room and by that I mean COMPLETELY different. Two amps measuring identically will have tiny tiny tiny differences on the same speaker system.

Your example of a 5" standmount vs something like a magneplanar, or full horn system(avante garde for example) even if measuring the same via comprehensive equalisation will sound massively different especially when driven by one amplifier like a solid state 100wpc. You can not get the same dynamic ability from a stressed and violently flapping piece of paper/plastic/Kevlar of 'only' 130mm vs a 15" diameter JBL 2226 or a huge ribbon panel or horn or open baffled lowther.

Theres that guy in America who issued a challenge that you cannot distinguish a blind test between two solid state amps of the same output and frequency response(he voltage matches each so they are running at the same SPL). He has run blind tests(with prizes) for various audiophiles and they have never been able to pick it accurately. If the amps are SO different, don't you think someone would have been able to say oh that's the Yamaha and that's the half tonne Krell? Although I will concede that a cheap HT amp will have difficulty at 2 ohms near clipping but at say 1/10th rated power at 8 ohms, a group of amplifiers with similar power outputs and load capability and same topology(class A/B for example) will be super super close unless very poor in design. You can of course often pick a valve amp and transistor amp due to the fact the valve amp usually has a different set of harmonics etc.

You would of course gain a benefit for power hungry low impedence loads from a huge amp vs another transistor amp that is not designed to run such a load, but the differences between that and a similarly rated, non audiophile unit for a fraction of the cost(say a crown XLS2500) will be small.

Change that competiton to speakers and I guarantee you'd pick the bookshelf speaker and the Avante garde duo every time, or at least be able to pick to similar bookshelf speakers for example. I bet a Sonus Faber Minima Amator sounds different to a monitor audio BX2.

Edited March 6, 2015 by LunchieTey

[Once was an audiophile]

@,

By basic level of quality I mean above the cheapo black rca's etc you get with a TV/cd/Blu-ray player etc. The copper quality and shielding will be poor meaning a negative effect on sound. I mean if you went to a retailer and bought a $50 1m rca cable or made your own from reasonable cable and connectors it should essentially be at a point where it should transfer all of the signal without degradation. Same for speaker cables, a basic level for me is say 12-14ga thickness cables of 99.9% ofc should be as good as needed for any reasonable speaker system at 100wrms of power and 3m per side. Obviously the super thin 1cent/m hook up wire supplied with a Chinese mini system is going to effect sound quality as the copper will be impure, and it has no current capacity being so thin.

Obviously if you run 1kw of power over 50m to a 2 ohm load, then yes you need heavier cables etc to carry the current without losses etc.

Many of the esoteric cables manufactured are all using pseudo science and marketing ploys to make their cable seem super special and a lot of it is psychological. Some believe that if the banana plug weighs 100g vs 1g it means better conductivity even if both have the same contact area and construction material. Same if the jacket is nice or if it has a braided cover over it to look pretty. I personally admit some of these cables sure class-up a hifi system an look lovely(same as braded fuel lines on a polished chrome engine on a car etc) but are only there to 'add value' so you feel better for handing over $1k for $10 of copper. Copper is the best conductor of electricity on the planet and it can only be so pure. Anything else is actually imposing a different resitance/capacitance/inductance and is in effect, a very basic passive equaliser(even though many audiophiles will turn their nose up at ACTUAL equalisation as it should be PURE etc)

My point is that swapping RCAs for say a warmer sound means the original set/new set is imposing a change in system response which is likely due to poor conductivity, some resistance or higher/lower capacitance in the cable. This to me is still just distortion, just a linear kind.

I personally prefer no signal loss all the way through the chain but that's just me. A nice gauge conductor, high purity copper(which I will ad is NOT expensive to produce) cable will provide all the signal transfer you ever need.

It's kind of a contradiction for many audiophiles, they want absolute purity of sound yet impose various signal changes by varying components like cables, and amplifiers. If they were all actually linear in frequency response and amplitude response(dynamic ability) you should actually hear no change.

Thanks for sharing our experinces are different by the way silver is a better conductor than copper.....[emoji120]

Edited March 6, 2015 by kajak12

[Guest Muon]

@@LunchieTey

 

OK, it appears that we will disagree on many things, but this is common in this hobby

[rantan]

Thanks for sharing our experinces are different by the way silver is a better conductor then copper.....[emoji120]

 

it is also a better conductor THAN copper

 

Edit: unless you meant that silver was the best, and copper was second best

Edited March 6, 2015 by rantan

[mwhouston]

Next time I'm ABing cables, I'll ring you up and you can tell me over the phone, which one is better

Man I got chew covered, the cheapest!

[Once was an audiophile]

Sound is influenced in this order of importance IMO,

1 speakers

2 room and room treatment and speaker placement

3 source quality (assuming the lowest quality is already reasonable,no 64kb mp3 haha)

4 amplifier,i put this below source as any decent amplifier should be capable of driving the vast majority of speakers and should by rights have a flat response withing the audible band. Anything less and your amp is crap regardless of price. If it struggles with certaim impedences or loads it has a poor power supply. You wouldn't drive a car that can only drive on level ground would you?

5 source unit (referring to CD only) as even a cheapass basic brand name cd player or bluray player can give extraordinarily low distortion and with a good recording will be within small % of the accuracy of the best players. Using an external linear DAC makes differences even smaller.

Last of all are cables. Once you reach a basic level of quality, above that is just crap. If your new rca changes the sound, it is because it is introducing its own colouration to the signal.

Anything else is just crap and you're wasting your money because you think its 'special'

Even saw one guy use spacers to keep the cables off the floor to stop the earths magnetic field from affecting them. This bloke would simply not accept that the earths magnetic field does not stop at his carpet and infact reaches well outside of our atmosphere. If you sold him audiophile anti magnet field carpet for $100000 a meter he would buy it.

When are you having a gtg? seriously i would love to hear your system

[sir sanders zingmore]

When are you having a gtg? seriously i would love to hear your system

 

you already know what it sounds like don't you?