What makes you build a system around an amplifier?


Serious question. I almost always care about the room and speakers first, then build around that. However, this is not the only way to do things.

If you have ever insisted on keeping your amplifier, but were willing to change everything else around it, please let us know why. What made an amp so outstanding in your mind that it was worth making it your center piece. Imaging? slam?

Be specific about the amp and speakers or other gear that you shuffled through.

Thanks!

E
erik_squires
Imaging? Relaxed presentation? Bass juiciness? Best presentation of Nina Simone you ever heard?
Yes, yes, yes and who??

When I have the right amp in the system, its a lot easier to convince my girlfriend to spend the evening spinning LPs...
bdp24,
I can't say what the "cause" was for the "grainy" sound.  The factory rep was proudly describing the preamp/power amp combination driving those speakers.  He did say that he thought the speakers were "unforgiving".  I have found some DACs produce a somewhat "dry" sound, but IMO the speakers sounded "grainy" too reproducing vinyl as well as digital.
Sean:

Really good question! I’m afraid I don’t know of strong research in this area, so I can only guess that in some ways, a good amp does not ruin:

  • Crosstalk
  • Phase
  • Amplitude
  • Channel matching
It may be some amplifiers actually change one or more of these values from the ideal. It has been shown that dips in the 2.4kHz range in speakers can enhance the perceived imaging, so perhaps a very colorful amplifier also plays around in the frequency and time domain.Or perhaps interactions with certain speakers pushes something in the frequency or time domain around just enough. :)

It may be something quite counter-intuitive, like for instance, rolling off the top octave. I don't know enough about imaging science, but I find the idea of Head Related Transfer Functions fascinating, and wonder how they apply to tube electronics.

Hopefully some one will jump in and tell me where the state of the art research is!

Best,

E