2. amps-preamps
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Honest Amp Reviews: Impossible?

So, I’ve noticed a flood of class D junk hitting the market over the last several years. They come from many different brand names from people you’ve never heard of before like "VTV", to popular Internet-in-the-know brands like PS Audio to famous names like Marantz. One thing they ALL have in common: the complete inability to find honest reviews online for these products.

For example, let’s take for instance the Stellar series from PS Audio. Class D junk with the usual attempt to improve euphonics with some kind of input stage. They call this scheme class AD, I guess to differentiate all the other brands that do something similar. However, you’ll never see a review site point this out; they’ll comment briefly on the design and then dutifully call it class AD afterwards as if it isn’t just a class D amp like many others.

Next, the reviewer will invariably lie about the sound. This lying usually takes the form of lying by omission. They’ll gush about how beefy and controlled it is, how neutral it is, how wide and natural the soundstage is, etc. What they WON’T mention is how lifeless, flat, boring and ultimately fatiguing they ALL are. The buyer who doesn’t know any better has to find that out for themselves while he slowly grows to distrust anything a reviewer has to say about anything. So, the only way to actually get value out of a review is to see if a certain amp has the positive attributes you are looking for while trying to painstakingly research any problems it might have because the reviewer won’t mention them.

In addition to the lies of omission, there’s the usual con of giving certain gear to certain reviewers who will appreciate / like the piece. That Stellar will NEVER be put up against a Dan D’agostino or a Pass for example. This could be valuable to the buyer to see how a lesser amp stacks up against a high end one, but it’s not, apparently, useful to the reviewers. Why? Why is telling the whole truth about amps -- all gear really -- taboo?
madavid0
yyzsantabarbara
4,887 posts
 
Thursday or Friday.

The same reviewer had a new review out today saying the SMSL SH-9 THX-888 Headphone Amp at $289 was a  better value than the Topping A9 at $500 and closer to the $3000 Benchmark AHB2. Both the AHB2 and the SH-9 are THX based amps.

The headphone stuff is crazy fun because of things like this. I am writing this as I listen to the great HPA4 with Meze Empy headphone, total bliss. Both, items I bought based on reviews and partially on a dealer recommendation on the Meze.

Could not demo the Purifi amp today but did demo the Persona 9H speaker.
madavid0 OP
214 posts
 
Hmm, very interesting. I have Fostex TH900 modded for a balanced cable. I wonder how well these cheap units stack up to my Mjolnir 2 with NOS tubes. I think I'll read what this guy has to say...
jaulbrich's avatar
jaulbrich
22 posts
 
Sounds to me like the "old school" fighting the future:-)  My grandapa used to do that...but he died:-) I have Moon 740P, 680D 820S, Niagra 5000PC and B&W 802D's with a pair REL 820s.  Power Amps are a pair of NAD M22 v2 (900W @ 8 ohms, $3300.00ea)  and a lot of expensive Audioquest interconnects and cables.  Compared them to same components with McIntosh 1.2KW.  In most areas the M22's were better, but I would say the Mc's were a little more euphoric...but not $25K more.  The Moon 888's are $120K a pair...come on man!
roxy54's avatar
roxy54
8,011 posts
 
Euphoric? Now that's funny...
audio2design
1,351 posts
 
George is that you?

I think the ops "rant" is quite possibly born out of the same reaction that people with $200K+ sports cars had when they came to the realization that some "lowly" pleb, with a $50,000 Tesla Model 3 could clean my clock at the light.  How dare someone with less earnings than me be able to "beat" me. ME!    Weirdly this afflicts even those that can't afford that $200K sports car. They are still strangely offended by the sudden removal of "exclusivity" of something expensive.

Let's face it, this spills over into the turntable \ CD-Digital argument as well.  You may like your $10,000 or $20,000 or more vinyl setup, or perhaps you just envy having one, but I guarantee that a well designed DAC for $2,000 (or less), recreates a far more accurate version of what was recorded.  I am not saying you will like that $2,000 DAC more, I am saying that it will recreate what was recorded more accurately, more faithfully, or whatever adjective you want to use. That fact offends some people, and as opposed to accepting it, they strike out and attack.

The op also makes the classic mistake of thinking everyone wants what he wants, which can have some relation to the above as well. Some people want and love accurate music recreation. Some (I would even say a majority) don't, though if they are an audiophile, the will profess up and down stomping their feet that they do, even though, in most cases, they have no clue what that sounds like.

I can't say I have been fond of Pass amplifiers myself, even though I have recommended them to other people. Pass even states he "tunes" the sound for each family, so there goes that whole neutrality thing out the window. So given that Pass intentionally adjusts the sound of his amplifier away from neutral, why do you insist they are the penultimate in amplification?


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