Alexx V arrive in NJ
- Thread starter marty
- Start date
Hi Carlos,
I understand where you are coming from, in that to compare two components in the system all other things should remain the same. However, you have to take into account the state of tune of the system. One component may suit the system as it is currently tuned and another component may not, and may require the system to be re-tuned somewhat to sound at its best.
I am into DIY and am towards the end of an 18 month speaker build. Now the room has such a powerful impact, that I am often adjusting it as much as the speakers. It makes me wonder how a speaker designer can voice a speaker properly without having a truly neutral room, and that I am tuning my speakers to sound at their best in My room. If the speakers were moved to a different room they would not sound anything like what I intended.
As I work on the speakers, I also make fine tuning adjustments on my source, pre-amp and power amp (none of which are measurable), all of which is intended to achieve a final illusion coming out of the loudspeakers in my room.
I do not want to derail further Marty's very interesting thread.
David, I think you raise an important topic on which I would like us WBF members to make substantive progress and to achieve greater mutual understanding.
I will start a new thread about this topic. Anyone interested in this topic should please go to: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/cordial-participation-in-terms-of-service-2.34032/
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I don’t think that I could have been any clearer on how repositioning speakers invalidates the amplifier comparison.
Optimizing or tuning the speaker‘s positioning for different amplifiers is an all together different thing. In the audiophile way, why stop there and not also swap with cables that are more synergistic with the amplifiers while we are at it? Before you know, they know it, the audiophile has optimized a different set up and system and all along never accomplished the goal of evaluating and assessing the relative performance of both amplifiers.
You know at the end of the day audiophiles can and will do whatever they want to convince themselves on the amplifier they “want“ but for a professional reviewer to have a flawed process for evaluation, boy oh boy this is a total disaccreditation.
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That sounds a little CCP, tbh.
Maybe Ron you mean you'll set amended rules and we'll all agree.
The saying in the UK is "your pub, your rules".
The problem with evaluating 2 amps in the same system without making any other changes is that it also has its pitfalls in really being able to make a determination about the ABSOLUTE quality of the amp. Example:
- You have a speaker with a wicked drop in impedance, say 0.5 ohm at 60hz-75hz...and your current wonderful amp ("Amp A") has a great frequency response into a standard 8ohm and even a 4ohm load...but buckles slightly (more than the target 0.5% variance) with that 60hz-75hz frequency range during peaks. So you end up backing the speaker 2 inches closer to the wall to provide some reinforcement. Fair enough. No system is perfect.
Then along comes Amp B...measures about the same as Amp A at standard 8ohm and 4ohm loads...but is designed to maintain much better performance down to 0.5 ohms.
What happens when you plug Amp B into the system? At 60-75hz, it probably maintains the recording's original signal better...but with the speaker's backed up 2 inches closer to the wall, now the 60hz-75hz bass is slightly too much. Is Amp B over-hyped in the bass? Or is it that the original setup was optimized for Amp A which measures great to 4ohms but happens to struggle at 1ohm to a variance of more than the target 0.5% and therefore bass at this range decreased by 1-2db and lacked oomf.
Put another way, if I am looking for the best amp, which do I prefer...Amp A that sounds great with my current speaker location...or Amp B that sounds inferior with the current speaker location...but significantly better if I had to slightly adjust the speaker a few inches? For me, its B.
I agree with the high level principle that you have to eliminate variables and change only one thing at a time to do evaluations. That is basic scientific method. However, in complex systems, it is very rare that you get to make 1 simple change and ALL observations thereafter have NOTHING to do with the intricate interactions between parts of a complex system and are ALL simply about the one element that was changed.
In the above case, the 'over-ripe bass' with Amp B in the system was actually because the original speaker placement had suited Amp A which did not handle 0.5ohm loads during peaks quite as robustly.
- You have a speaker with a wicked drop in impedance, say 0.5 ohm at 60hz-75hz...and your current wonderful amp ("Amp A") has a great frequency response into a standard 8ohm and even a 4ohm load...but buckles slightly (more than the target 0.5% variance) with that 60hz-75hz frequency range during peaks. So you end up backing the speaker 2 inches closer to the wall to provide some reinforcement. Fair enough. No system is perfect.
Then along comes Amp B...measures about the same as Amp A at standard 8ohm and 4ohm loads...but is designed to maintain much better performance down to 0.5 ohms.
What happens when you plug Amp B into the system? At 60-75hz, it probably maintains the recording's original signal better...but with the speaker's backed up 2 inches closer to the wall, now the 60hz-75hz bass is slightly too much. Is Amp B over-hyped in the bass? Or is it that the original setup was optimized for Amp A which measures great to 4ohms but happens to struggle at 1ohm to a variance of more than the target 0.5% and therefore bass at this range decreased by 1-2db and lacked oomf.
Put another way, if I am looking for the best amp, which do I prefer...Amp A that sounds great with my current speaker location...or Amp B that sounds inferior with the current speaker location...but significantly better if I had to slightly adjust the speaker a few inches? For me, its B.
I agree with the high level principle that you have to eliminate variables and change only one thing at a time to do evaluations. That is basic scientific method. However, in complex systems, it is very rare that you get to make 1 simple change and ALL observations thereafter have NOTHING to do with the intricate interactions between parts of a complex system and are ALL simply about the one element that was changed.
In the above case, the 'over-ripe bass' with Amp B in the system was actually because the original speaker placement had suited Amp A which did not handle 0.5ohm loads during peaks quite as robustly.
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Lloyd, do you really want me to reply? You served me a softball and I don’t want to embarrass you.
Carlos269,
In the end, these are discussions...I remain open to learn. No one should be embarrassed to learn. I am not. At the same time, no one on this forum should be insulted or attacked. (I am not saying you are intending to do so, by the way, but we have all seen disagreements or debates suddenly become antagonistic.)
I welcome learning. Thank you.
No Marc; no amended rules -- just back to first principles.
To continue this topic please join us at: https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/cordial-participation-in-terms-of-service-2.34032/
Ok here we go: In order for the assessment to be a fair comparison between the amplifiers they have to perform under the same conditions. If I need to break that down for you, you cannot compare the performance of the amplifiers unless everything else in the system stays the same. There has to be a datum or reference for the comparison and that is the other amplifier’s performance. This is a relative comparison. Comparing the ”ABSOLUTE” performance of an amplifier as you described, under “optimal” conditions, against the “ABSOLUTE” performance of a different amplifier, under its own “optimal” conditions, is not only ill-defined as the possible permutations are not only endless but unknown but more importantly meaningless to the end users as they would provide no meaningful information. I could go on if you want me to.
Yes, Carlos, that is correct. I agree with you so far.
So help me here with my example, so I can understand where you are coming from.
In my example, if we followed that rule to the letter, then the owner of the system in my example keeps Amp A, and misses out on the opportunity buy Amp B...move his speakers 2 inches, and then have the better system because, in fact, Amp B measures better at 0.5ohms, no?
So help me here with my example, so I can understand where you are coming from.
In my example, if we followed that rule to the letter, then the owner of the system in my example keeps Amp A, and misses out on the opportunity buy Amp B...move his speakers 2 inches, and then have the better system because, in fact, Amp B measures better at 0.5ohms, no?
I think this is the nub of the amp comparison debate:
1. If you wish to evaluate in a FIXED system which amp is better, than you must NEVER change anything in the system except the amp
2. HOWEVER, as we all probably expect, the goal of the exercise of evaluating a new amp is NOT just to test the amp in a FIXED system, it is to improve the entire system (ie, getter better sound). And if it turns out that getting the amp under evaluation and moving speakers 2 inches forward into the room sounds better, most audiophiles would likely go with the new amp.
But to your point (and I would agree with this), the above replacement with the new amp does NOT categorically make the 2nd amp better in any absolute sense. It simply means that the amp worked better when the rest of the system was optimized around it...than the old system being optimized around the old amp.
And practically speaking, a better system is (at least for me) the goal of evaluating any new equipment.
The one final point I would add is that by saying the newer amp is not categorically better than the old amp does NOT mean we can never declare one amp better than another. But I think as with almost any scientific-type analysis, an amp would have to be tested under MULTIPLE scenarios relative to the older amp in order to see if systems optimized around either amp consistently sound better with the new amp...before you could say you have declared a winner.
1. If you wish to evaluate in a FIXED system which amp is better, than you must NEVER change anything in the system except the amp
2. HOWEVER, as we all probably expect, the goal of the exercise of evaluating a new amp is NOT just to test the amp in a FIXED system, it is to improve the entire system (ie, getter better sound). And if it turns out that getting the amp under evaluation and moving speakers 2 inches forward into the room sounds better, most audiophiles would likely go with the new amp.
But to your point (and I would agree with this), the above replacement with the new amp does NOT categorically make the 2nd amp better in any absolute sense. It simply means that the amp worked better when the rest of the system was optimized around it...than the old system being optimized around the old amp.
And practically speaking, a better system is (at least for me) the goal of evaluating any new equipment.
The one final point I would add is that by saying the newer amp is not categorically better than the old amp does NOT mean we can never declare one amp better than another. But I think as with almost any scientific-type analysis, an amp would have to be tested under MULTIPLE scenarios relative to the older amp in order to see if systems optimized around either amp consistently sound better with the new amp...before you could say you have declared a winner.
My conclusion in your example is that you cannot attribute the improvement brought about by moving the speakers 2 inches, to the amp.
That is my point as well. If you leave the speaker where it is, you also cannot conclude the 2nd amp is inferior to the 1st amp if it turns out the speaker was put 2 inches closer to the rear wall to make up for a deficit of the 1st amp.
And yet the 2nd amp sounded overly bass heavy in the original setup (ie, inferior).
Thus the conclusion is that no one should be declaring one amp categorically better than another...as you say (and I agree), it is pointless to try to say that. What makes MORE sense, is that within certain systems, the 2nd amp consistently contributed towards better sound than the original amp when all systems were optimized around the performance of each amp.
You really have a pretzel here that adheres to no scientific norms or logic. Sorry this is not logical and any conclusions derived are not valid and are meaningless. You cannot simply make up your own rules. You have to design and follow an evaluation process that has been validated and proven fit for purpose.
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BTW, LL21, have you moved the wilson’s to a different spot with your new R.K amps? just curious .
The upper modules are to be adjusted but with Corona/Omircron, we are postponing. As I get to know the sound better, there will be some adjustments I will try for to see what happens. Already the amp is producing detail the original Mephisto did not with the speakers set up with them in place. So that is a good start.
On the contrary, the main rule remains the same: evaluate the 2nd amp to see if it produces better sound with my system. If by placing it with the existing speaker location, it sounds worse, but by moving the speakers 2 inches, it sounds better than the original system with the old amp...I am going with the 2nd amp and moving the speakers 2 inches.