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Amp design, specs, etc. : What is important?


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Posted

"There is no innovation in stereo amp design in a sense that there isn't any room for it, its based on an hi quality op amp chip that takes and input signal and outputs an amplified signal, the basic formula is still the same in every amp

the difference is the ratio of resistors and caps and inductors used (value ratio which influences RC and LC constants in the cir), quality of components and the op amp chip"

That is a quote from a local friend. We were discussing the Eico HF-81. He basically doesn't understand how an amp with bad measurements could sound good.

Basically, what is truly important in the sound of an amp? I'm not into this side of the hobby but I'm sure there are people here who can answer this (and I'm tired of being asked technical things :)).

Posted

you could turn his question around on him. assuming his words are in the quotation marks, you could ask:

"when you say hi quality opamp, what makes it high quality?"

perhaps those same qualities make one amplifier better than another?

Posted

The problem here is "what is a bad measurement?" If the specification which is being measured has little to no correlation with perceived sound quality, then does it matter if the measurement is "good" or "bad"? And that's a problem in audio these days, getting the data we measure to correlate with the sound quality we perceive isn't as straightforward as it may first appear.

Posted

Basically, what is truly important in the sound of an amp? I'm not into this side of the hobby but I'm sure there are people here who can answer this (and I'm tired of being asked technical things :)).

You have a sliding scale of performance when it sounds awful, bad, fair, nice and very nice and this scale is very dependent of the music you are listening to.

Headphones are a rather easy load so it's in other words pretty easy to make a good amp although there are differences. A friend of mine borrowed my QRV04 (OPA627, BUF634), QRV07 (TPA6120) and my masterpiece QRV08 (discrete). All designs have extremely low distortion but the QRV08 was too good. It revealed too much recording flaws according to him but I like to hear everything so it's about personal taste also.

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