Richard Clark $10,000 Amplifier Challenge - Why Couldn't Anyone Pass this Test??

Everyone knows that well built solid state amplifiers designed to stringent specifications and tolerances are going to sound very much alike at low volumes.

It would be a huge surprise if that weren’t true - it would mean that all those measurements and engineering principles and the consistent improvement in amplifier performance are completely wacky and wrong.

It is when you stress a SS amplifier that differences may be audible - at higher SPL and with challenging loads or with dirty power or when driven close to clipping and where distortion rises rapidly.

That said, there will be very small differences even at low volumes but these will extremely difficult to discern reliably with most music sources unless using very specific test signals.

So no surprise to me.

Why couldn’t they pass the test? The same reason why a panel of experts cannot tell the difference between a Stradavarius and any other well made reasonably good sounding violin. Did anyone ever pass one of The Amazing Randi's $1 Million challenges? I don't think so.

Because all properly designed and built amplifiers not in clipping sound exactly the same, of course ;-). But seriously, shadorne's assertation that "well built amplifiers....." can be proven to be untrue by hooking up a low-powered class-A amplifier (a Pass Labs or First Watt would be nice) to, for instance, the original QUAD ESL, a very transparent loudspeaker. My Bedini 25/25 driving my QUADs sounds dissimilar from my two high-powered class-A/B amps doing the same. As Nelson Pass suggests, it is an amp's first couple of watts that matter the most!