What's the biggest difference between really good amps and good amps ?

[DM3000 Owner]

A good amplifier makes a tremendous difference in sound quality. I recently evaluated the Ayre V1xe (200 watts) against a Bryston 4BSST (300 watts), Bryston 14BSST (600 watts) and the new Classe CA2200 (200 watts).

I thought that by having more power to make my N802's sing especially with the Bryston 14BSST that this would make a big difference in sound quality.

The bottom line is I learned very quickly that just having a lot of watts does not necessarily translate into good sound quality. I very quickly dismissed the Bryston in favor of the Classe and in comparison to the Ayre it was a closer match but in the end the Classe had a smoother sound throughout the midrange along with a more dynamic low end that I prefer especially when playing rock. On the high frequencies it was close but price independent my wife and I thought the Classe amplifier was best against the lot.

A lot of the synergy has to do with your source and pre-amp of which I am using an Ayre K5xe which sounded superior to the Classe CP500 I also evaluated.

Without question you should find a dealer that lets you evaluate the amplifier in your own system.

Perfect :T

Now go out and compare the Classe to a McIntosh, Krell and Levinson and let us know what you think. I have Brystons 7B's and have been thinking about upgrading. They sound great but you know how it goes.

[BassThatHz]

Ok instead of all this speculative talk;
I've recorded a small sound clip of my front speakers (no subs) powered by a yamaha rx-v2500 and one of a rotel rmb-1075. File format is lossless mono wma.
Sorry the mic quality is utterly horrible (broken rat-shack lol), you'll have to really concentrate hear the differences but they are there. Both were leveled to 64db at 1khz tone, everything else was the same.

Be careful there are a few infrasonic(0-15hz) distortions in a few spots.

http://download2-6.files-upload.com/2007-06/06/10/RotelVsYam.zip

This is for educational purposes only.

If the link stops working... well too bad

[Joey_V]

LInks dead....

[Greg Gale]

Follow up on amp evaluation

Perfect :T

Now go out and compare the Classe to a McIntosh, Krell and Levinson and let us know what you think. I have Brystons 7B's and have been thinking about upgrading. They sound great but you know how it goes.

I have made my purchasing decision and now own the Classe CA2200 and am not interested in evaluating the others. My dealer carries McIntosh as well as Levinson although they are considering dropping Levinson as the quality and support from Levinson is not where he feels it needs to be with the pricing they are charging. He has had a lot of quality issues with Levinson.

[DM3000 Owner]

I have made my purchasing decision and now own the Classe CA2200 and am not interested in evaluating the others. My dealer carries McIntosh as well as Levinson although they are considering dropping Levinson as the quality and support from Levinson is not where he feels it needs to be with the pricing they are charging. He has had a lot of quality issues with Levinson.

That is disappointing about Levinson. I bought Brystons because I could not audition locally and between the lower price, 20 year warranty and fact that everyone said that they never break down, they seemed like the ones to get. Kind of like a Lexus instead of a BMW.

In any event, I really do not want to part with that much money and have problems.

[WI Rotel]

I have made my purchasing decision and now own the Classe CA2200 and am not interested in evaluating the others. My dealer carries McIntosh as well as Levinson although they are considering dropping Levinson as the quality and support from Levinson is not where he feels it needs to be with the pricing they are charging. He has had a lot of quality issues with Levinson.

The classe CA2200 is a fabulous amplifier, you should have no reason to look elsewhere. Among the excellent high priced amps the differences, are at best subjective, your only possible upgrade here would be even more power, not sound quality. Of course, your power requirement is only dictated by your speakers, for most, you probably have all the power you'll ever need. 8)

[Greg Gale]

That is disappointing about Levinson. I bought Brystons because I could not audition locally and between the lower price, 20 year warranty and fact that everyone said that they never break down, they seemed like the ones to get. Kind of like a Lexus instead of a BMW.

In any event, I really do not want to part with that much money and have problems.

Don't take what I am saying as gospel in regards to reliability of Levinson. My dealer who I have been doing business with for over 25 years was the biggest Levinson dealer in the Chicagoland area (Audio Consultants) and now do not even have Levinson on display. When I asked why the issue of quality and support of the product came up. Madrigal Laboriatories who manufactured Mark Levinson branded products has undergone many changes and is now part of the Harman Specialities Group so maybe this is a reason why they have had some issues??

[Aussie Geoff]

Hi,

Time for this thread to go to its rightfull home in the Audio Hideout...

I'm sure the B&W faithful will follow it there (it's a fun place )

Geoff

[andrewT]

"There has always been a desire for a compromise between the efficiency of Class B and the linearity of Class A and the most obvious way to make one is to turn up the quiescent current of a Class B stage giving what is called Class AB operation. As this is done, an area of Class A operation, with both output transistors conducting, is created around the zero-crossing.
In fact as this area widens as the quiescent current increases, until ultimately it encompasses the entire voltage output range of the amplifier, there is thus an infinite range of positions between the two extremes of Class B and Class A, and this range of modes of operation is referred to as Class AB.
Unfortunately, while Class AB would seem to be a perfect compromise between Class A and Class B operation, it does have some hidden issues.
It can be shown [Ref 1] that if Class AB is used to trade-off between efficiency and linearity, its performance is certainly superior to B below the AB transition level, operating as it does in this region in pure Class A. This can have very low THD indeed, at less than 0.0006% up to 10 kHz [Ref
3].
However, once the signal exceeds the limits of the Class A region, the THD worsens and does so somewhat abruptly due to the gain-changes when the output transistors turn on and off. Linearity is in fact inferior not only to Class A but also to optimally-biased Class B. This is not always fully
appreciated. The effect is sometimes called "gm-doubling".
Class AB distortion can be made very low by good design, but remains at least twice as high as for the equivalent Class B situation."

This sounds like Douglas Self talking.
If it is, D.S. is setting us up for an alternative Class of biasing that may/may not improve the sound quality of the amplifier that he is about to propose. What I am implying is that this is retailing rhetoric.

As to the change between ClassA biasing and ClassAB in a switchable amplifier, I reckon it is down to the detail of how the amp stages/currents have been designed.

[twitch54]

Yes, there are amplifers that sound better than the upper Rotels, however, not for the buck or at the same power level ie a 100watt per channel bryston cannot drive speakers as well as a 200watt rotel (simply doesn't have the juice)

This is a some what careless statement to make for the fact that dbl power equates to only a 3db gain, and while all good and nice there are many other factors to consider, namely, what kind of speaker will you be driving ?

As an example I use Martin Logan Vantage's, whose electrostatic panels provide a "capacitive" load to the amplifier (energy is actually stored and 'kicked' back to the amps outputs) thus the paramount consideration is not only current output capability but one of extreme stability. My present amp, a Plinius SA-102 while having less than half the power of my previous Rotel 1090, provides much more overall.

I am NOT bashing Rotel, in fact I agree they are some of the BEST products for the $$ spent. I'm merely trying to emphasize the importance of system synergy for the best overall musical experience.

[Joey_V]

This is a some what careless statement to make for the fact that dbl power equates to only a 3db gain, and while all good and nice there are many other factors to consider, namely, what kind of speaker will you be driving ?

As an example I use Martin Logan Vantage's, whose electrostatic panels provide a "capacitive" load to the amplifier (energy is actually stored and 'kicked' back to the amps outputs) thus the paramount consideration is not only current output capability but one of extreme stability. My present amp, a Plinius SA-102 while having less than half the power of my previous Rotel 1090, provides much more overall.

I am NOT bashing Rotel, in fact I agree they are some of the BEST products for the $$ spent. I'm merely trying to emphasize the importance of system synergy for the best overall musical experience.

I agree... same with me. Summits, came from RB1090 to Plinius SA102 and the difference is very apparent on A/B.