Best Amp for Timbre, Depth and Spatial Resolution?

BTW, I am not saying all amps sound the same. But an amp alone has no sound. So what specs/measurements on an amp alone can be used to determine a pecking order in regards to timbre, depth, and spatial resolution? I am not sure there are any. But they can be used to determine relative matches to specific speakers. Then you are in business.

So you can assess how any particular amp + speaker combo does in this regard, but I am not sure it can be done for amps alone.

If an amp plays in the forrest does it have a sound?

NVP...your third point makes absolutely no sense at all. Is this discussion really about imagining differences? You can easily test an amp for output balance, and you can test if speakers are matched, and an amp alone has tonal characteristics for days...I think sleep deprivation has set in among the posters.

"an amp alone has tonal characteristics"

Maybe if you listen with a large enough sample size of different speakers to determine.

But what is "best" or even better will be determined more by other things I think.

Mapman and Wolf, I am only bouncing ideas.

My point is that if speakers placement has been optimized properly, one should still be able to detect small differences in soundstage when changing amp because of the reasons I have stated above. Of course, we talk about small differences. Further, because each amp controls the subwoofer of speaker differently, the speaker position might also need to be slightly changed when changing amps. Therefore, because most of these small differences are cause by the interactions between amp, speakers and room, IMO it is basically impossible to determine them by performing measurements on a single component (except maybe for point 3). One has to try the various amps in his room.

Wolf, some example: left channel has slightly higher distortions/volume then the right channel. I clearly stated that I do not know I significant/large such differences can be. Thus, it should have been clear that I was only a guess.