How big of a difference do amps make?

When people mention coloration...what exactly are we talking about? A certain tone or house sound of component?

Fla,
The Polish review is the best description and accurate review of the Takatsui 300b.That group just nailed it.
Regards,

'Coloration' usually refers to a tonality. 'Richness' in the midrange is a common coloration caused by the presence of a 2nd harmonic in tube amps.

The ear hears harmonic distortion as a tonality.

It is also the most sensitive to bird song frequencies, and uses odd ordered harmonics to determine how loud a sound is.

As a result it is more sensitive to these harmonics than any other phenomena of sound; much more so than human vocal ranges!

So if the equipment makes odd ordered harmonics, even in vanishingly small amounts, we hear it, and have words for it: harsh, bright, hard, clinical, etc.

We hear lower ordered harmonics (2nd, 3rd and 4th) as richness. The ear finds these harmonics less objectionable; in tests people will not complain even if 30% 2nd harmonic is present. That is not entirely true with audiophiles- hence the 'tube coloration' of Elizabeth’s post.

Thus the tubes/transistor debate, ad nauseum.

The other part of the coloration issue relates to the Voltage and Power Paradigms, the link to which I dropped in on my first post in this thread.

If you mix equipment from the two camps, you get a tonal aberration. This is the amplifier/speaker matching conversation that we also see a lot.

Listening to a live jazz quartet(alto sax,B3 Hammond,guitar and drums) last night there must have been a lot of 2nd and low order harmonics present in that club. Those instruments were quite warm,full tone and rich. One thing they were`nt was lean,thin, washed out or bright. So I guess the instruments were`nt producing those odd and higher order harmonics. If that`s the explanation.The tone of the alto and guitar were the antithesis of clinical,lean and bright last night.
Regards,

Yes- naturally, real instruments have sounds composed of both even and odd-ordered harmonics :)