03-31-08: Atmasphere said:
"Dave, its likely something else, in this case power and distortion. Audiophiles like to think that 'damping factor' is what they are hearing when the bass is better, and a lack of 'damping' when the bass is muddy. What is really happening is that an amplifier with clean bass is not making distortion. The amp that has muddy bass is making a lot of distortion. It really is that simple."
Well, that doesn't explain why one Jeff Rowland amp with 100 watts (into 4 ohms) of power sounded so much better in the bass than another Rowland amp with 275 watts into the same load, but with similar IM and harmonic distortion numbers.
There WAS distortion, but it seemed to be introduced by the woofers, not the amps. One amp controlled the woofers better than the other. (I'm a musician, so I know "real" bass. There were "Poster board" images of instrument in this case).
The least controlling amp was a relatively low powered Primare. Some might say it's bass had more "bloom", but I would have said it was "bloated". The lower powered Rowland improved the bass by a couple of orders of excellence, but the Rowland monoblocks really brought us very close to real bass.
When you speak of distortion, are you speaking of the entire system, including any uncontrolled resonance of the speakers' drivers? I heard that distortion and it's very real and obvious. The publish distortion numbers of amps are not measure with a big woofer on the other end of the wire. If we include that distortion, then it seems like damping and power will decrease system distortion given equal measurement of the amps under test loads without speakers attached.
Thanks for continuing to try to help Duke.
Dave