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One Amp To ‘Rule’ Them All....

Is there one amplifier that everyone can agree on as a contemporary standard? An amplifier that can be considered a standard in both the studio and in a home stereo setup?

What one amplifier does everything very well and can be found in homes and in professional audio engineering environments?

What amp covers all the bases and gives you a glimpse into all qualities of fine musical reproduction?

...something Yamaha? ...something McIntosh?

128x128brettmcee
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,861 posts
 
I wish to define for the whole audio community one or more common, competant, reliable, well executed, sonically comprehensive, reasonably affordable amplifiers that we can begin to use as ‘reference amplifiers’ to judge other amplifiers by. That’s it.
A lot depends on what you’re trying to do.

With any amplifier its all about distortion, and not all designers consider the same distortions important.


The human ear uses the higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure; if there are higher ordered harmonics as distortion, the amp will sound brighter and harsher than real life. This is fundamental to the tubes/transistors debate.


So are you looking for a benchmark that has the lowest distortion? If so, its unlikely that amp will ever sound right- such amps tend to use large amounts of feedback to linearize the voltage response of the amp (so its output is flat on all loudspeakers) and to eliminate distortion. The problem is that the application of distortion, while suppressing a lot of distortion, adds some of its own and its all that higher ordered variety so its audible even in very small amounts.


This of course is an argument against feedback; the problem is that the spec sheets we’re all used to seeing are designed to make the product look good on paper rather than allow us to tell how it sounds! This is why we have to audition the product regardless of what the spec sheet says.


If you want to eliminate the distortion caused by feedback, you have to eliminate the feedback. This means you can’t expect flat frequency response from the amp with many loudspeakers, but OTOH since the ear often favors tonality caused by distortion over actual frequency response, this might not be so bad, especially given that no speaker is really flat in the first place.


However there is a means of dealing with this, for more seehttp://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php
minorl
1,016 posts
 

I agree with many here that "it depends on what you are trying to achieve".

Some are getting sort of heated in this discussion.  I would step back and make the scenario of your best friend wants to purchase the "best amp" for his/her system.  Wouldn't the first question you ask be, what speakers are you going to use?  I need to know this first.  I also need to know your level of music appreciation to determine what you mean by "best". If you couldn't tell whether you are listening to a real instrument vs an electronic instrument, or know what dimensionality, space, soundstage, etc. are, then your idea of "best" is not what others would consider best.

I would also want to know you price point.  Within a certain price point and taking the other things into consideration can help determine what is "best".

If you have 102 db/watt speakers, then you really don't need 500 wpc amp.  where about 10 watts would drive you out of the room.  So for that speaker, you would need a low powered, very clean amp. 

If you have extremely difficult to drive speakers, well, that is another story altogether.  you basically need an arc welder.

If your listening room is stupidly huge and you are sitting very far away, well, you need something that can help the speakers project.

People have their favorite amps, pre-amps, etc.  However, their favorite "best" amp won't work for you if you situation is different.

1. What speakers are you driving?

2.  How is your appreciation of music?

3.  What is your price point?

4.  What is your listening room like?

5.  What are your other system pieces composed of?

If I know these things about  you, then I can narrow the range of amps for you to demo.

enjoy

mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,183 posts
 
The best amplifier if you dont have a roof for the limits amount of money invested,i dont know, and nobody knows,even the guy who can afford anything...


The best amplifier at the lowest cost,I know ..My Sansui AU 7700 is one of the possible choices, 100 bucks paid, 100 other bucks to clean it and upgrade some components... Few amplifier can drive headphones or speakers,or turntables etc with so more ease and quality, it is an amp so flexible with the utmost qualities of sound of his era that to beat it on ALL counts,flexibility and sound quality, it is nearly impossible... Then absolutely not the best amplifier there is for sure, but on all count  with his used price,yes the best there is for me ...I am not even looking back...  
noble100's avatar
noble100
2,419 posts
 
atmasphere,

     Thank you for an articulate summary of amps that explains some of the issues involved with amp design and, really, amp selection.
     My impression is still that brettmcee, despite his contentions otherwise,  is looking for some quick answers to a question that can only be properly answered through knowledge and the personal experience of auditioning multiple amps of various types in one's system.  Most audio enthusiasts have learned this the hard way and already know well that there's no ideal amp for every system and that choosing an amp for one's system is more complex since there are many factors that must be considered.  
     Factors such as budget, other existing system components especially speakers, room characteristics, types of music typically listened to along with typical volume levels and personal preferences in overall system sound characteristics.  
     Despite this not even being a complete list, brettmcee has only provided one of these factors to base our suggestions on.  We are told he owns multiple versions of Infinity Kappa speakers which only further complicates the issue because they're audiophile type speakers that are notoriously hard to drive and, imho, will likely perform best with bi-amplification.  
     So, brettmcee is requesting we tell him the answer to his question, "One Amp that Rules Them All?", with limited info while the likely better question, given his speakers, is 'which 2 amps are best?'  Ironic.
     But oddly I somehow still wish to help, so I'd suggest he put in some effort and search for a powerful class D amp for his bass drivers and a tube amp to drive the midrange and treble drivers that he likes the sound of.  Unfortunately, this will require him to get his rump out of his house and gain some personal knowledge and experience.
    Well, nobody said getting great system performance was going to be easy, right?

Tim 
wolf_garcia
6,711 posts
 
Note that assembling an audio system by trying to get audio geeks to agree on some sort of amplification "standard" isn't a particularly good idea, as this crowd is going to display all the technical blather and subjective opining they can muster, which will likely just fog up your brain. It's what we do here. Get a high current power amp someplace and plug it in. I bet there's an audio equipment dealer someplace that sells such things, and, if you're lucky, recommend something. You can talk to the people at Audio Advisor or Music Direct to get some suggestions.
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