Best Amp for Timbre, Depth and Spatial Resolution?

Exactly. There is merit to the subjective approach. Specs only tell part of the story. You don't listen to specs, you listen to sound and music.

There was a time when amplifier measurements varied greatly, and some claimed specs were less than (let's be generous and say) accurate. Then when specs were actually measured, they started to become way more consistently accurate. Just when the specs started to become little more than academic fodder, some manufactures started a specs war with specs marketing becoming the driving force, even surpassing their reason for being; sound quality. Even though many specs (though not all) taken out of context offer the consumer little insight into how an amp might actually sound, I'd rather not throw the baby out with the bathwater and return to the bad old days. I say keep measuring, keep it in context, and maintain some semblance of quality. Perhaps in the future we'll have better diagnostic tools to help guide us in the vast sea of choices. Even the crude measurements we currently have still offer us a bit of insight into system compatibility.

Bo1972:

"What can I say?"

Maybe a tad less, perhaps?

Springbok10, I agree 100 percent with your first post here. That is why I have asked in my first post here how does one alert the moderators about this guy.

When are we talking about quality in audio? When is it good and when is it bad? Yess taste Always will be a very important part. For me music and also audio is emotion. I want to be touched. I want to feel the emotion in the music. A technical well measured amp does not say anything about the sound. This matters most. For an amp it is the same thing. The best amps can give a more realistic sound of instruments. When I listen to a violin in real the sound directly does something to your emotion. So when I listen to a set and the sound is so much different, It does not touch my emotion. That is why sound is the most important part in audio. Without it you will never become happy. Spatial resolution, how much detail can we hear. But it is not only how much we hear, where is the resolution coming from. The level of palpable image is important for the feeling. In real instruments and voices are extreme small and direct. So you need to place them blind where they are at the recording. The level of blacks is an important part how good the palpable image is in front of you. Depth is the part were music goes from 2-dimensional to 3-dimensional. Instruments suddenly stand free in the room but they even can vary in about 4-5 metres form eachother. This sets all the parts of the recording full free in the room. This is part where you see the big smiles on the faces of the people who are listening. That is the main reason why I only focus on a 3-dimensional sound. It is that simple!