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Is there actually a difference?

Speakers sound different - that is very obvious. But I’ve never experienced a drastic change between amps. Disclaimer that I’ve never personally ABX tested any extremely high end gear.

With all these articles claiming every other budget amp is a "giant killer", I’ve been wondering if there has ever been blind tests done with amplifiers to see if human ears can consistently tell the difference. You can swear to yourself that they do sound different, but the mind is a powerful thing, and you can never be sure unless it’s a truly blind test.

One step further - even IF we actually can tell the difference and we can distinguish a certain amp 7/10 times under extreme scrutiny, is it really worth the thousands you are shelling out to get that nearly-imperceivable .01% increase in performance?

Not looking to stir up any heated debate. I’ve been in audio for several years now and have always thought about this.
asianatorizzle
oldschool1
45 posts
 
"SS amplification (pre and power) reached such a high level of development over the past three decades that competing units are functionally and sonically equivalent. "

This is simply NOT true. If you have decent ears, you can tell the difference between a $1000.00 and a $5,000.00 SS amp. I had an Anthem A5 which has roughly 225 WPC into 5 channels. It has one power supply on board. It sounded light years better than the Integra 5 channel, 125 WPC, it replaced. Now I have an Anthem P5 which has a whopping 325 WPC into 5 channels, each channel has it's own PS, and I can definitely hear another HUGE step up in SQ. The difference is headroom. With lower, lesser quality amps you have much less than with higher end units. There is a reason they cost more, the quality of components and engineering invested.
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seanheis1
623 posts
 
The challenge with tests is that the testers are in an unfamiliar room, with unfamiliar gear, and unfamiliar music. It's overwhelming and in these conditions SPEAKERS can be difficult to discern. 

Slip a new amp into my system, in my room, and with my music and I'm going to notice the change.  
roxy54's avatar
roxy54
7,962 posts
 
I am firmly in the "Yes, they can sound very different camp." In the past, I have switched out similar mid-fi amps on lower resolution systems and heard no discernable difference, but since I have had better systems, any amp that I use now sounds distinctly different. The differences are easy to hear, simple as that.
terry9
2,333 posts
 
Every type of capacitor, every brand of resistor, transistors, tubes, all sound different.

Add circuit topology, and, while there may be similarities, no two amps will sound identical - that is, with practice and attention.

I change one thing at a time in my DIY Class A SS; sometimes it takes a day or two to educate the ear, but most changes are audible. For example, as an experiment, I used different brands and types of resistors in a high quality rotary switch as the gain resistor. The differences were obvious, the choices clear - and the most expensive resistor made the poorest sound.
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