The Richard Clark "all amps sounds the same" test

Douglas - great last post.

Atma - hadn't heard he refused to pay, would be interesting to see more on that, and who finally broke the test!! If it was a regular Joe, magazine reviewer, or just snobby audiophile like us :).

To the equipment switching issue: I know for a while Stereophile was using the Mark Levinson 320S for various comparisons because it has the ability to somehow level match per input, I don't know the exact details, but that wasn't a cheap pre at retail! (And one I strongly considered getting before getting a Supratek. And while I'm off topic the Joule Electra line pre looks amazing...) My understanding is that the guy has a recording engineering or electronics background and part of the thing per the link above is that he runs the amps under 2% THD, so for some on electrostatics that may be 60 db :), but just to say he has equipment to measure THD and all kinds of little doo-dads, and high quality switching stuff - but that is all conjecture as I haven't seen any of it. Completely agreed that how you switch will matter, and if sound is degraded - on earbuds CD ripped Flac and apple lossless sound the same, so agreed that if one part of the chain is low-level differences will be minimized.

To some comments just above about car audio - I have felt that some high end car audio has extremely good dynamics as far as comparing to home audio - that is one area where car audio does really well.

For people just reading to the end my personal conclusions is that you have to look at his constraints really really carefully. Under his constraints I think he might be right. But then if you look at his constraints and consider driving a large electrostatic speaker to concert levels, then his constraints take away some of the most imoprtant differences bewteen amps. I decided that I might very well fail his test between the Sherwood receiver I found that claims 4 ohms capability and was like $75 bucks and a Nelson Pass pure Class A 150-lb dual pair of monoblocks because under his test criteria we may not get over 55 db.

Part of his point is that amps do a particular thing, and he can eq all the 'warmth' and stuff like that out of them, he seems to think he knows precisely what an amp does and that it doesn't effect things like soundstage or some of the other 'qualities' that we ascribe to all audio equipment. He does agree that speakers, CD Players, etc., even pre-amps make a difference, but he is making a claim just about how amplifiers work, by degree from a scientific perspective, that they do one thing only, and that one thing shouldn't have an effect on some of the fuzzier criteria we ascribe to audio equipment - *and to which he does ascribe to other pieces in the chain*.

Also - everyone here - this makes me think that Parc may really be on to something. In Photography there are programs that can make digital images sort of look like various film emulsions like Velvia or Kodachrome (for those not in photograpy, films with very particular characteristics) - maybe Parc could add to its system a setting for 'mimic tube amp', 'mimic solid state amp', etc. As it is it allows for tons of adjustments that are sort of along the lines of what they guy here seems to be doing.

Parc is high quality analogue, and me with my supratek I'm not going digital pre anytime soon, but the other thing this makes me think of is some basically 99.9999% lossless Parc device embedded in a megabuck DAC/CD/digitalPre that does everything once in the digital domain and then *once* and once only goes from digital to analogue to the amp. Esoteric, EmmLabs, Meridian, Berkeley, Levinson etc. kind of companies, they could put out something like that.

Parc should 'lease' their technology for digital embedding in the total digital side just as chip companies like Burr Brown, etc. sells DAC chips to these companies and they would make money there and from the customization/consulting they do.

So one of the biggest conclusions I'm coming to from thinking through the Richard Clarke stuff is that Parc, and perhaps digital eq embedded early in the chain, might have a strong future in Audiophile land...

I am surprised that this is not generally accepted. My experience is that most good solid state amplifiers which are operated well within their capability (no clipping - i.e. at very modest levels) do sound quite close to eachother - much closer than different speakers. I for one would not be confident enough to pass a test unless it was with a test signal. I don't mean to say amps do not have their flavors - they do but it is definitely, for the most part, what I would call subtle.

In that sense, Richard's test proves nothing to me.

Of course, there are lots of very good reasons to own a high quality amplifier...good music is dynamic, extremely dynamic and it is at those extremes that great amplifiers can and do make a HUGE difference (low and high output levels)...if you want percussion or large band orchestral done well at realistic levels without sounding horrible and harsh then the highest quality amp makes ALL the difference.

Johnnyb53, Shostikovich is my most revered composer. I use every bit of my Krell's 400watts into my 4ohm MG3.6R's...but they sound so sweet:O)

Lightminer, here is something else to consider:

http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html

IOW, a speaker that is designed for transistors may not work with tubes without tonal anomalies, and I for one (if doing the test) would insist on one of our amps against his transistor 'control sample'.

In order to do that, its likely that the tube amp should be on a speaker designed for tubes.

I don't know how you could conduct a valid test unless you had a at the very least a speaker that was equally friendly to tubes as it is to transistors. My guess is all these tests were done transistor vs transistor- I'm pretty sure I'd be hard pressed to accurately tell the difference.

My guess is all these tests were done transistor vs transistor- I'm pretty sure I'd be hard pressed to accurately tell the difference.

I agree - I would suspect the majority of high end car amplifiers are soild state - I would imagine microphonics from vibration might pose a problem with a tube application in that context.

Indeed I was careful to mention "solid state" in my previous remark, as I think you can hear a tube versus SS more easily, especially those with an output transformer - so it would be incorrect to say everything sounds the same. You would indeed be more likely to find slight variations in tube amps due to the voltage paradigm and choice of output transformer (as well as topologies). However, frankly speaking, the test (as described) seems to try to minimize all these aspects too. In short, by limiting amplifier operating range to extremely modest levels (which avoids where most large differences might show up), careful volume level matching, and by trying to compensate for the voltage paradigm through the addition of resistors - it is hardly suprising that remaining differences would pose a challenge to even a discerning listener to score so highly (as Richard requires) when listening to music.