LSA Voyager GAN Amplifier

BTW, the "off the shelf" modules you talk about were listened to and tweaked over a couple year period by various people in the high end community. Check out Mark Shifter’s comments on this (he was one of the main people).  They made it sound the way it does on purpose.....I think they did a very good job.  The measurements were secondary to the listening tests.  And that is just the way it is.  Believe it, or not.  he he...

Well that is interesting, considering that these are essentially variants on the GAn Systems Evaluation boards that Skip Taylor designed for GaN systems, but with some of the flaws fixed and now sold under his company name. Considering those came out about March 2020 and the LSA GaN was done in July 2020, that "couple years" comment is quite suspect.  It does not "sounds" any particular way. The distortion while not state of the art (except for IMD) is below audible levels, so that pretty much puts us at how the output impedance goes up at higher frequencies resulting in speaker dependent objective and subjective differences.

Mark Shifter also said this,

"We believe that GAN FET technology is the holy grail of switching amp design"

... which has about as much relevance to audio and amplifiers as saying "I like blue".

Since you don't appear to have anything relevant or concrete to add to this conversation @ricevs, I will say good bye.

Please let’s stop trying to be right and get back on subject. Back to listening impressions about this amp.

What is relevant is up to each person (no one person desides on what is relevant here....that would be arrogance). I think a lot of what Cindyment says is made up.....the stuff about Pass and this amp....he just want to think that way.....he does not know, for sure. That is my opinion......but we must stop all this nonsense.  There are much more beautiful things to say, feel and be.   I think you are all relevant....you are all beautiful. We can agree to disagree....can’t we. Let’s move on.

Bye bye @ricevs ,

I will reiterate, Nelson Pass was probably just being nice, but it is pretty obvious why he was not interested.  I am done educating you. I regret the education I have already provided. I will accept that apology now though.

Well, there you have it from the horse's mouth: Nelson Pass discussing how different distortion components relate to perceptions of sound quality using SIT devices. Oh, and he discusses how measurements can predict sound quality, using measurements and then confirming with listening.

Brilliant.

Wow, you just cannot keep from hammering on me. Nelson is nice, but what he said is real. He respects what I do, but is not interested. How would you know any different from what he spoke. It is arrogant to assume you know something that you don’t. I doubt you have educated anyone. I regret nothing. I love this moment. I speak truth and love. I have nothing to apologize for.....it is arrogant to assume that I do. Throw the hammer away. You don’t need to be better than me. You don’t need to be RIGHT and therefore me WRONG. Would you rather be Right or Loving?......that is the question to ask yourself....every second. We are the same. I am not better than you...you are not better than me.....we are just human beings.....(pretending actually....we are divine light, in reality). Throw the hammer away. Give me some flowers, please. I love you.

I have no doubt that Nelsons findings (which I have know about for years) are probably accurate. However, he does not know how to make an amp transparent. He just likes certain sounds and knows how to make them and then makes the ones people like. Transparency, in all its phases, is much harder to come by. And measurements will only take you so far. In order to know if an amp is transparent you need to do a straight wire bypass test on it (which no one does). You need to put an amp in series with another amp and see if it changes the sound. My friend Sieg was doing this back in the 70s with his wideband solid state amp that beat all amps he ever put it up against for years and years. Every little thing he did to the amp, including all the passive parts, power supples, etc changed the sound of the amp. I got him to bypass his junk binding posts and he was amazed by the difference. It did not measure any different. You cannot get to transparency through numbers alone. All passive parts, all execution, all power supplies, etc. all affect the sound. Many, many high end companies know this and that is why they keep making better stuff. Not because they got the new one to measure better.....they got the new one to sound better because of many small but powerful changes.