Do you understand your amplifier?

08-11-11: Foster_9
The database could be set up to provide great information.... This could give audiophiles a head start on possible mistakes, especially for the inexperienced. The consistency could be in helping people avoid mistakes in their pairings when making gear choices.

Excellent point.

As I see it the audiophile is basically acting as a systems engineer. It is generally neither necessary nor possible (given the usual unavailability of schematics and meaningful theory of operation writeups) to have a detailed understanding of the internal design of an amplifier or other component.

What is both possible and desirable is to have a good understanding of the interface characteristics of the components (input and output impedances, impedance variations with frequency, etc.), and of the end-to-end transfer characteristics of the components (gains, sensitivities, signal-to-noise ratios, etc), and of how all those things interact.

While of course none of those things will be or should be decisive in finalizing a choice of components, that kind of understanding will, as you said, decrease the likelihood of poor matchups and expensive mistakes, narrow the range of choices, facilitate diagnosing problems, and make it possible to better prioritize investments of time and money.

Best regards,
-- Al

Exactly!

Build it and they will come?

Ignorance is bliss (sometimes). "Rockitman" has a point...why should I waste valuable nap time learning modern amp technology when other well trained geniuses are working on these things for me? I'm a musician...I need to practice. Read enough reviews and opinions and you can get a clue about how things work and/or sound before trying things at home. I have an amp that (amazingly) has almost ZERO info on the net (Forte' Model 55 MOSFET 100 watt A/B) but comes from a respected maker so I took a chance. Jon Soderberg of Vintage Amp Repair was my only source of meaningful info, and damn, the amp sounds GREAT with promise of sounding greater once I send it to him for mods.

"why should I waste valuable nap time learning modern amp technology when other well trained geniuses are working on these things for me"

The only reason would be is that an amp is a component in a component system. In component systems, for best results, you care about the interfaces between components, but not so much on the internal workings of the component. That is the domain of the geniuses who build them. The interface between each component has to be considered though to determine which ones can work together well.

Even in the best case of a stereo system professionally integrated by an expert using one or more boxes, for best results, you still have to deal with the integration of the system into the room. And also, for best results, the integration of you and your ears into the room (ie listening location).

At that point, you have all the bases covered and life should be good audiophile-wise!

Systems engineer? If only I was making enough money to be able to call myself something like that. };0)