How does one get off the merry-go-round?

Frank,

To see where your power amp is at: put on some fairly driving rock where the drummer is having a good time on the cymbals fairly constantly through the song, at a very LOW level. If your system is half reasonable you should be able to hear the shimmer of those cymbals beautifully captured ( if you can't, go directly to Jail, do not pass Go, ...).

You say that if the sound of the cymbals collapses when the volume goes up, the problem is with your amp. Where do you think the problem is if the shimmer is not so beautifully captured at low volume?

Drubin, thanks for your response! As regards getting the cymbals to shimmer, I'm talking here, in terms of what's possible, of early Rolling Stones, say. And yes, a system CAN do that.

If shimmer is not so good, double check first through the speakers at VERY, VERY low levels. I mean here at headphone levels, that is, you can stick your ear right next to the tweeter, as if it were actually one side of a set of headphones (this is actually another test I'll mention anon).

If you now get shimmer the problem is deeply buried in the power amp, try another amp as a way of crosschecking, perhaps.

If you still only got bad shimmer at that very low level, try decent headphones from CD player or preamp, with the power amp SWITCHED OFF, pulled out of the wall, right out of the way! If shimmer now exists, try plugging the power amp back in, switching it back on with the volume set to zero OR disconnecting the IC's, that is, nothing coming out of the speakers. Does the shimmer through the headphones go bad now?

Can you see where I am coming from? Keep going back to a simpler and simpler setup, and when that's working OK try adding bits of the system back in. The trick is to isolate where the problem comes in and start working upon that ...

Frank

Easy, Improved BOSE series 6 mk2 speakers STACKED...Love that Analog SOUND!

Solve the riddle.

There it is folks, if you don't hear the definitive shimmer, your doomed to spend eternity on the merry-go-round. And I thought it was just a compulsive disorder. Boy, I'm starting to feel better about myself already.