Montaldo, I don't think we need to be omniscient for this - we will never be. Let us not forget that the job of an amplifier is an easy one: it just has to amplify an electrical signal without otherwise changing it. Fortunately absolute perfection in this is unnecessary: there are experimental data on the critical levels of imperfections: how non-flat can frequency response be before we notice, how much distortion and what kind can we have before we notice etc? And fortunately technology has progressed to such an extent that ever since the seventies of the last century it has been possible to produce amplifiers with imperfections that are below the threshold of human hearing acuity. Peter Walker's 'straight wire with gain' has been achieved, and at increasingly lower cost. There have also been subjective evaluations in the shape of blind tests to see if under controled conditions panels of experienced listeners can distinguish properly designed amplifiers from each other (I participated in one). The answer was that these panels could not distinguish them.
And yet there are continuing accounts of audiophiles who claim they can hear significant differences. How could this be? Are the differences they hear real? And do these audiophiles actually aim for neutrality or do they want a more euphonic version of the original (i.e. do we have the same objective and are we, therefore, talking about the same thing)?
When you look at measurements of audiophile amplifiers in Stereophile you can see that many do not measure particularly well, and are likely to colour the sound in one way or another. In short, they will sound differently, since they are not playing the same 'straight wire with gain' game. I presume this is intentional, and if that is what consumers want, it is up to them. I have tried to describe what makes such amplifiers different. My contention is simply that if you want a straight wire with gain, that has become an easy and fortunately also quite affordable target.
Anyway, to end this, I want to post a link to an interview with my audio hero, the late Peter Walker: http://www.meridian-audio.info/public/interview%5B4446%5D.pdf
And yet there are continuing accounts of audiophiles who claim they can hear significant differences. How could this be? Are the differences they hear real? And do these audiophiles actually aim for neutrality or do they want a more euphonic version of the original (i.e. do we have the same objective and are we, therefore, talking about the same thing)?
When you look at measurements of audiophile amplifiers in Stereophile you can see that many do not measure particularly well, and are likely to colour the sound in one way or another. In short, they will sound differently, since they are not playing the same 'straight wire with gain' game. I presume this is intentional, and if that is what consumers want, it is up to them. I have tried to describe what makes such amplifiers different. My contention is simply that if you want a straight wire with gain, that has become an easy and fortunately also quite affordable target.
Anyway, to end this, I want to post a link to an interview with my audio hero, the late Peter Walker: http://www.meridian-audio.info/public/interview%5B4446%5D.pdf
