better power cable

[Pete L]

There is a snobbery or bias against AV amplifiers, yet they are the same as hifi amplifiers

No they are not really. I mean yes, they are the same in as much as they are amplifiers, but they are generally engineered to a different set of criteria than two channel amplifiers. Two channel amplifiers are engineered to maximise the fidelity of music. A/V amps are engineered to maximise the fidelity of movie soundtracks, which include dialogue and sound effects as well as music. Clearly there will be some overlap, but they are different beasts intended to do different things.

Of course if you believe all amps sound the same within their rated power output then none of this means a thing!

Pete

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

I have lived in a property with an excellent supply using first rate engineered products totally without problems.

My existing property uses even better equipment designed and manufactured by top flight companies BUT I have had to utilise a radial, leads etc to make my components listenable.

I do not argue against science or engineer/designers but if any claim is made that the design enables the equipment to deal with poor electrical supplies.......it does not work in my property.

TBH the phrase "top flight companies" in that context did bring the 'MAX' aircraft to mind! 8-] Alas, no matter how good the components, how they are assembled may matter. In this case my first reaction was to wonder about ground loop effects. Levels of 50/60Hz that may in themselves be too low to notice might affect what you hear when music is played, for example.

 

[Shadders]

No they are not really. I mean yes, they are the same in as much as they are amplifiers, but they are generally engineered to a different set of criteria than two channel amplifiers. Two channel amplifiers are engineered to maximise the fidelity of music. A/V amps are engineered to maximise the fidelity of movie soundtracks, which include dialogue and sound effects as well as music. Clearly there will be some overlap, but they are different beasts intended to do different things.

Of course if you believe all amps sound the same within their rated power output then none of this means a thing!

Pete

Hi,
Your post makes no sense. A signal is a signal. It is hard to design an amplifier that has a poor performance when changing specific values of resistors etc., makes all the difference.

Look at the DIY section here and the clones of hifi amplifiers - there is not a lot in them at all. They are very basic. You really can't cut it down anymore - as doing so would stop the circuit working completely.

If one of the lauded amplifiers from a manufacturer whose clone uses so few number of components, than an AV amplifier is the same.

Regards,
Shadders.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

Of course if you believe all amps sound the same within their rated power output then none of this means a thing!

Pete

However it might be possible to believe that some amps deliver outputs which are audibly indistinguishable when used by a given listener in their system to play the music they like in their listening room. So this isn't "all or nothing".

 

[S-Man]

No they are not really. I mean yes, they are the same in as much as they are amplifiers, but they are generally engineered to a different set of criteria than two channel amplifiers. Two channel amplifiers are engineered to maximise the fidelity of music. A/V amps are engineered to maximise the fidelity of movie soundtracks, which include dialogue and sound effects as well as music. Clearly there will be some overlap, but they are different beasts intended to do different things.

Of course if you believe all amps sound the same within their rated power output then none of this means a thing!

Pete

We are somewhat OT now, but yes I agree.
If you compare the engineering in a Yamaha 2 channel and amp and a Yamaha HT amp of the same power rating per channel you will find that the HT amp has significantly higher voltage rails for the power amps - which are expected to sag a lot more under load. This way they can get higher peak power for less cost (smaller smoothing caps and transformer per total rated watts).

 

[palacefan]

Surely to listen to Music via hi-fi is being subjective, everyone logically does that and those making claims about power leads are doing that because as you say using your ears is the final arbiter!

 

[Pete L]

Hi,
Your post makes no sense. A signal is a signal. It is hard to design an amplifier that has a poor performance when changing specific values of resistors etc., makes all the difference.

Look at the DIY section here and the clones of hifi amplifiers - there is not a lot in them at all. They are very basic. You really can't cut it down anymore - as doing so would stop the circuit working completely.

If one of the lauded amplifiers from a manufacturer whose clone uses so few number of components, than an AV amplifier is the same.

Regards,
Shadders.

I'm not sure I fully understand what you are saying here. You seem to be saying that all amplifiers are so simple in circuit design and so low in component count that basically they are all the same?

Pete

 

[Pete L]

using your ears is the final arbiter!

This is an excellent, well made and extremely relevant point.

The point here is that the 'objectivists' who claim that there is no difference in sound between different mains cables are being just as subjective as those of us that do hear a difference. Why, because they are using their ears to reach that conclusion, just the same as we are. There is no other way.

In the final analysis we are all being 'subjective' because we are all using our ears. There really is no such thing as an objective opinion in this context. You cannot use scientific measurements to 'prove' that things sound identical. You can only use your ears - and that is being subjective.

Pete

 

[Shadders]

I'm not sure I fully understand what you are saying here. You seem to be saying that all amplifiers are so simple in circuit design and so low in component count that basically they are all the same?

Pete

Hi,
What i am saying is that a clone of a revered amplifier from a certain manufacturer uses a circuit topology that when compared to high performance techniques, is rather lacking, and yet that amplifier receives rave reviews - and has a "hifi lore" following.

To build an AV amplifier - you cannot get any simpler than the revered amplifier topology, else the circuit just will not work.

It is sheer snobbery of the hifi subjectivists that denigrates a product that is no different from hifi equipment. This snobbery puts many off from discussing AV amplifiers.

Regards,
Shadders.

 

[Shadders]

Surely to listen to Music via hi-fi is being subjective, everyone logically does that and those making claims about power leads are doing that because as you say using your ears is the final arbiter!

Hi,
Yes - the power supply example is yet another false hifi folklore answer.

If you have a reasonably easy load speaker with 87dB/W sensitivity, then 10watts of your amplifier gets you 97dB SPL. This is very loud - domestic listening levels will be slightly less.

So the 100watts per channel AV amplifier is running at 1/10th of its rated power. AV amplifier are the same as hifi amplifiers.

Regards,
Shadders.

 

[sq225917]

I quite like that angle Pete.

But the thing is, I did have a cable that made a difference once, it sounded like a huge difference the first time it was used. But on subsequent listening, it made no difference. So I can only conclude....

1. Mains cables only work one time. Unplug them at your peril.
2. It was an imagined difference.
3. It was the act of removing the old and fitting the new cable that made the difference.

I suspect a mix of 2 and 3. So much so that I unplug my leads once a week, just in case.

 

[YNWOAN]

Not in my experience.

 

[Pete L]

Hi,
What i am saying is that a clone of a revered amplifier from a certain manufacturer uses a circuit topology that when compared to high performance techniques, is rather lacking, and yet that amplifier receives rave reviews - and has a "hifi lore" following.

To build an AV amplifier - you cannot get any simpler than the revered amplifier topology, else the circuit just will not work.

It is sheer snobbery of the hifi subjectivists that denigrates a product that is no different from hifi equipment. This snobbery puts many off from discussing AV amplifiers.

Regards,
Shadders.[/QUOTE

OK, I think I see what your are saying. A manufacturer makes an amplifier with a rather simple basic circuit and yet it sounds rather good and gets good reviews. I don't know if that has ever happened or if it is purely hypothetical because I know next to nothing about amplifier circuit design. But to infer from this that therefore it is impossible to make a functioning amplifier that sounds any less good seems to me to be a huge and unfounded leap of logic. This would mean in effect that all budget amps will sound virtually identical. But they don't.

I agree that there is snobbery towards A/V amps in hi-fi circles. This is because A/V amps generally sound less good when playing music than a stereo amp at a comparable price. Sure there are some A/V amps that sound decent with music but generally speaking not as good as similarly priced stereo amps.

If I were putting a home cinema surround sound system together I would buy a decent A/V amp and I would also be happy to listen to music on it - it's not that much worse. I have done this in the past using a Sony A/V receiver and it sounded fine to me. But I would expect to get better performance with music by using a stereo amp of the same cost.

Pete

 

[palacefan]

TBH the phrase "top flight companies" in that context did bring the 'MAX' aircraft to mind! 8-] Alas, no matter how good the components, how they are assembled may matter. In this case my first reaction was to wonder about ground loop effects. Levels of 50/60Hz that may in themselves be too low to notice might affect what you hear when music is played, for example.

Jim
I only used that term because I did not wish for poor quality equipment to be levied against my electrical problems ( not that I felt the problems were attributed to equipment) My problems were a poor ring main with noise, improved by using woven cable to reduce Rfi Changed to a dedicated radial which still left problems because of consistently high voltage readings,then regeneration -- Wow just wow.

If I had run my system via the engineers handbook I could not enjoy it,so I am quite happy to be wrong!
I must say that I have always felt your input to be helpful and not abrasive--Thanks

 

[Shadders]

OK, I think I see what your are saying. A manufacturer makes an amplifier with a rather simple basic circuit and yet it sounds rather good and gets good reviews. I don't know if that has ever happened or if it is purely hypothetical because I know next to nothing about amplifier circuit design. But to infer from this that therefore it is impossible to make a functioning amplifier that sounds any less good seems to me to be a huge and unfounded leap of logic. This would mean in effect that all budget amps will sound virtually identical. But they don't.

I agree that there is snobbery towards A/V amps in hi-fi circles. This is because A/V amps generally sound less good when playing music than a stereo amp at a comparable price. Sure there are some A/V amps that sound decent with music but generally speaking not as good as similarly priced stereo amps.

If I were putting a home cinema surround sound system together I would buy a decent A/V amp and I would also be happy to listen to music on it - it's not that much worse. I have done this in the past using a Sony A/V receiver and it sounded fine to me. But I would expect to get better performance with music by using a stereo amp of the same cost.

Pete

Hi,
You have confused price with quality. An AV amplifier will have economies of scale, so a same priced stereo amplifier is not better.

There is no specialness of stereo amplifiers. There is no special techniques to make a stereo amplifier compared to an AV amplifier. If you look at the text books by Doug Self, or Bob Cordell, you will see that the clone amplifier i mention is woefully spartan in design. It would be considered to be not hifi, as a few pennies will change its performance drastically.

The lore of subjectivity has created this dichotomy. A low performance amplifier is lauded because it comes from a specific manufacturer (naming no names), but a higher performance AV amplifier is worse, yet, an even higher performance stereo hifi amplifier is seen as good.

Even the law of averages will show that there must be a case where an AV amplifier must sound better than a hifi amplifier - yet we never hear that on a hifi forum.

Regards,
Shadders.

 

[Pete L]

I quite like that angle Pete.

But the thing is, I did have a cable that made a difference once, it sounded like a huge difference the first time it was used. But on subsequent listening, it made no difference. So I can only conclude....

1. Mains cables only work one time. Unplug them at your peril.
2. It was an imagined difference.
3. It was the act of removing the old and fitting the new cable that made the difference.

I suspect a mix of 2 and 3. So much so that I unplug my leads once a week, just in case.

Obviously you were there and I wasn't and you know what you heard. I've no idea what cables were involved. Frankly if it was such a huge difference I would think it is unlikely that you imagined it. Certainly unplugging cables and then plugging back in the same cable has been reported as leading to improvements due to contacts been cleaned by the movement. Personally I have never been able to demonstrate that in my own system!

I have never claimed that all cables sound different, or that the differences where they exist are huge. In my system I can easily hear differences between some basic mains cables. They are subtle, but they are there. Certainly not anywhere near the extent of making or breaking performance. Not really worth worrying about in fact. However the differences I have observed between basic mains cables and the specialist audiophile cables were more pronounced - the more expensive cables always sounded worse to me. So I would never but an expensive mains cable or mains block because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like it.

Pete

 

[Pete L]

Hi,
You have confused price with quality. An AV amplifier will have economies of scale, so a same priced stereo amplifier is not better.

There is no specialness of stereo amplifiers. There is no special techniques to make a stereo amplifier compared to an AV amplifier. If you look at the text books by Doug Self, or Bob Cordell, you will see that the clone amplifier i mention is woefully spartan in design. It would be considered to be not hifi, as a few pennies will change its performance drastically.

The lore of subjectivity has created this dichotomy. A low performance amplifier is lauded because it comes from a specific manufacturer (naming no names), but i higher performance AV amplifier is worse, yet, an even higher performance stereo hifi amplifier is seen as good.

Even the law of averages will show that there must be a case where an AV amplifier must sound better than a hifi amplifier - yet we never hear that on a hifi forum.

Regards,
Shadders.

I can't prove it but I'd be willing to bet that some expensive A/V amps do sound better than cheaper stereo amps. A £1000 Marantz surround sound receiver would probably sound better than a £200 Cambridge Audio stereo amp when playing music. I guess the magazines don't make these sort of comparisons, and yes there is a snobbery in the hi-fi mags towards A/V amps and A/V kit in general, anyone can see that.

I use a Sony UHPH-1 Blu ray player as a CD player and music streamer and it sounds good to me. I've never even seen it mentioned in a hi-fi mag, other than 'What Hi-fi' which is really little more than a comic.

As far as amplifier circuits etc. go I really don't know what to say as I'm out of my depth - I don't understand them.

Pete

 

[Pete L]

You have confused price with quality. An AV amplifier will have economies of scale,

OK granted. What I should have said was that for a given price an A/V amp, because it is engineered with different priorities, will not sound as good as a stereo amp when playing music. I'm not entirely sure about this but I assume that as you go up in price with A/V amps the 'compromise', for want of a better word, will be less. In that case very expensive A/V amps should be as good as some cheaper stereo amps with music - but I don't know for sure. Chord Electronics I think used to make a very expensive surround sound amp that apparently sounded fabulous regardless. But I think it was about £20K or so.

Pete

 

[hifinutt]

does a better power cord and power block improve the sound?
If so: affordable and good.

https://www.hifi-forsale.co.uk/more...CRU_No.75&p=power_cable&prod_id=79988&offset=

well worth the money

 

[Shadders]

OK granted. What I should have said was that for a given price an A/V amp, because it is engineered with different priorities, will not sound as good as a stereo amp when playing music. I'm not entirely sure about this but I assume that as you go up in price with A/V amps the 'compromise', for want of a better word, will be less.

Hi,
This is why i referenced the clone of an amplifier from a revered manufacturer. An AV amplifier will be no different - it can't be, since any removal of components to save money would mean the amplifier will not work.

Not sounding as good is subjective. I don't disagree with someones subjective experience, but bias and snobbery exists, as you get more with an AV amplifier, so people automatically think there is a compromise. The manufacturers sell many thousands of those AV amplifiers, so is it a compromise or economies of scale ?

Going back to the Audiolab 8000A example - lots of people were very critical of it, and no one supported the sound. So, is it a bad amplifier, or did people who liked it not want to challenge the many who did not like it, for fear of being ridiculed ?

The complaint of mobbing or criticism by objectivists, from the subjectivists in the mains cable thread, is exactly the same as the subjectivists behaving badly in other threads causing people not wanting to post their positive experience. (i was trying to get back to the point of the thread).

Regards,
Shadders.