What makes an amp sound more direct ?

'Direct' is a term that I don't really understand, but I do understand that when we got rid of the feedback in our amps, they seemed to sound much more like real music. Palpable, with all the instruments more distinct and available to the ear, if that makes any sense.

Its been known since the 1950s that the application of negative feedback can add higher ordered harmonics, which contribute to 'glassiness', 'hardness', that sort of thing, which IMO/IME takes you away from the sense of real music and is instead more like a good hifi.

So this means that our amps won't drive as many speakers correctly as they would if we had feedback, But its been my contention because of the negative attributes of feedback that any speaker that requires that of the amplifier will likely never sound like real music- instead they will always sound like good or excellent hifi. For some this might be a rather indistinct line in the sand but I've always wanted the stereo to sound real.

Atmasphere,

I heard your setup with the large Classic Audio horn loaded speakers and United Home Audio in the larger ballroom at Capital Audiofest a few weeks back. A RTR tape of the Beatles White Album was playing.

It was a treat in that larger dedicated room in particular. The sound was very distinctive from most anything else there. It did have a certain warmer and seemingly more direct aspect to it than any other setup I heard that day. By direct I mean with that particular setup the location of the speakers in the room seemed somewhat apparent from listening.

In that large room, I think that was a good thing resulting in a large more focused primary soundstage in the middle of the room which was more realistic. A wall to wall holographic soundstage detached from the speakers in a room that large would have been a nice trick but not sounded realistic or lifelike.

There are pictures of the setup on the United Home Audio website if anyone is interested.

FWIW.

I think the goal should be to have the illusion of the performance being in the "room" with the listener.  Realistically, this is best achieved with dynamic, high current capable speakers hooked to fully balanced push-pull high current/high powered amp(s).  Class A or A/B sound best to my ear.  All aspects of a system contribute to the overall gestalt of course, but flea watt amps will not pressurize a room and deliver the dynamic control necessary to give you the excitement of being in the presence of live musicians.  Wilson, Krell, Dynaudio etc...can deliver full scale music without constraint (upper end models).  None of this matters if you do not have the right cables, power cords, preamp and source(s).  This does not mean that there aren't any other number of ways to get beautiful, lively and engaging music in the home...there are a myriad of ways for sure, but "live" sounding, unconstrained dynamic and accurate reproduction of the source requires a wide bandwidth power amp with lot's of headroom.  I left out horn systems and super high efficiency designs because I have not heard any that could do what I required of them to put me in the presence of the performers, especially at realistic volume levels while maintaining accurate tone and soundstaging.  Of course...IMHO!

I’m not sure what "direct" sounding means....

I have a Musical Fidelity M6si. I previously looked for information on the manufacturers site as to its design type and couldn’t seem to find the data. At one point I asked the dealer who replied "Class A/B". Some questions:

- Is the M6si class a/b?
- can an amp be a combination of designs mentioned (1-9)?
- If reply is M6si is not class a/b, then what is it?
- How can a lay person know what the design type of their amp is unless the data is provided? 

Thanks.

Mapman, Thanks for your comments!

I think the goal should be to have the illusion of the performance being in the "room" with the listener. Realistically, this is best achieved with dynamic, high current capable speakers hooked to fully balanced push-pull high current/high powered amp(s). Class A or A/B sound best to my ear. All aspects of a system contribute to the overall gestalt of course, but flea watt amps will not pressurize a room and deliver the dynamic control necessary to give you the excitement of being in the presence of live musicians. Wilson, Krell, Dynaudio etc...can deliver full scale music without constraint (upper end models). None of this matters if you do not have the right cables, power cords, preamp and source(s). This does not mean that there aren't any other number of ways to get beautiful, lively and engaging music in the home...there are a myriad of ways for sure, but "live" sounding, unconstrained dynamic and accurate reproduction of the source requires a wide bandwidth power amp with lot's of headroom. I left out horn systems and super high efficiency designs because I have not heard any that could do what I required of them to put me in the presence of the performers, especially at realistic volume levels while maintaining accurate tone and soundstaging. Of course...IMHO!

I find that a better model for what a stereo should do it that it can graft the room onto the particular musical event as it is happening.

'High current' as stated above is not needed though. What is needed is the combination of power and efficiency such that the system does not have to strain to present the music at a life-like level. Horns have no troubles doing accurate tone and soundstaging; they can do that in spades. So as long as you have the headroom its all good. I use the same rule of thumb for almost any amplifier- don't run it much past about 20% of full power for best results. This usually means the speaker has to have some efficiency.

Now its also an interesting phenomena that if you want a system to sound more like real music, its to your advantage to run a loudspeaker of higher impedance; 8 ohms being better than 4 and 16 being better than 8. This is because nearly all amplifiers have lower distortion into higher impedances and that can be heard as smoother and more detailed. Because of this simple fact (which you can see in almost all amplifier spec sheets BTW) 'high current' is not essential as you don't need high current for 16 ohms.

There is always some debate by what is meant by high current. To sort out a lot of the marketing hype I use the Power formula. It turns out that for most speakers you need a lot less current than is usually thought. For example to do 500 watts into a 4 ohm load you only need 7.9 amps.