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
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Yes I can.

The short explanation is that tubes generally are more linear. Semiconductors have a significant non-linear input capacitance which as any solid state designer knows can be tricky to deal with (in fact radios are tuned by the use of varactor diodes, which take advantage of this capacitance), and often requires the application of loop negative feedback to correct the non-linearities that result.
In a nutshell, the more linear the circuit, the better it is at low level detail. It is true that
The same phenomenon that give rise to various orders of harmonic distortion exist with both tubes and transistors.

But it is also true that tubes have less of that phenomena than transistors, which is why the odd ordered harmonics to which you refer are at a much lower level in all tube circuits. That is the basis of the tubes/transistor debate, since that lack of higher ordered harmonics is why tubes sound smoother. It really is too bad that Sony sat on the SITs, if you will pardon the expression :)  They really did offer the solid state replacement for a tube!

I tried to post the First Watt paper on Sony’s SIT designs.  Didn’t know Pass made a VFET AMP based on those designs.  Why doesn’t someone else use this approach??
Last time I checked amps do not make any sound without speakers and vice versa.  
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