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Do amplifiers really sound the same?

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avole

The wise never post on Internet forums
Having read so much about it on pfm and other forums (fora) I'm wondering.

At my temporary lodgement I have a pair of Epos ELS 303 speakers, which were at the lower end of their range a couple of years ago connected to a Pioneer A117 (10€), which I assume to be at the cheaper end of the market given the lack of a source direct button and the cheapie speaker connectors.

Source is an SL-10 or Airport Express.

Sounds OK if boomy, which, given the tile floor and no furniture until Saturday isn't a great surprise. Speakers won't be changed and will be sold off at end of contract.

Would I reap much benefit if I bought an amp at the 1000€ mark? My heart says "Yes", but my reading says "No".
 
Nothing. Not familiar with the combination at all. First time I've had floostanders, too.

The plan would be to move the amp to system 2 eventually.
 
No, but there are much smaller differences than with the transducers. They are where the big gains / likes and dislikes are at.
 
What about the Pioneer vs Unison Research Unico? Surely there'd be a noticeable difference at least?
 
Having had several power amplifiers here over the past few years the answer is they all sounded different.
 
Speakers must work well (match) the room and the amps should be a match for the speakers. Think car engines. In a small light car you can get away with a small engine but a big heavier car will need a bigger engine just to maintain the same performance.

Of course it is more complex but you get the gist. If you put the small engine into the big car you might say that it is a worse engine rather than its a mismatch.

Cheers,

DV
 
Yes, get the speaker/room interaction correct, then match your amp to the speaker (efficiency and impedance.) Once all is settled-in you probably will hear differences between even good amps, but they are far smaller than with speakers. If you get the speaker right then the rest will tend to follow.
 
Darth Vader said:
Speakers must work well (match) the room and the amps should be a match for the speakers. Think car engines. In a small light car you can get away with a small engine but a big heavier car will need a bigger engine just to maintain the same performance.

Of course it is more complex but you get the gist. If you put the small engine into the big car you might say that it is a worse engine rather than its a mismatch.

Cheers,

DV
Click to expand...

In general large speakers tend to be more efficient than small ones and so you would actually get away with a lower powered amp with large speakers!

The counter point to this is that many people would only want to put large speakers in a large room and it would then take a larger amp in order to fill a larger room..... but often still less than would be needed for 82dB/W mini monitors... even in a small room!
 
So from what you're saying a 30W (8ohm) amp would be OK for 87db and 4 ohm speakers, which the ELS303s are??
 
The answer to the question depends on the speakers in question, (and to some extent the room).

Speakers work because of the current the amplifier supplies. It's the current through the coils that causes them to move. An amplifiers ability to deliver current is ultimately limited by it's power supply. If the power supply isn't robust enough, when large musical peaks occur amplifier can't supply the correct amount of current that the speakers are demanding. Whether any given amplifier is "good enough" in this respect will depend on a) the quality of the PSU and b) the impedance curve of the speakers. The more difficult the speaker load, (i.e. lower), the better the amplifier power supply needs to be to maintain linearity with volume, or in other words dynamics.

In practical terms it's the bass frequencies that suffer the most as generally it's that part of the spectrum that will require the largest current draw and the power supply only has a limited capacity from which it needs to supply current for the entire frequency spectrum.
 
avole said:
So from what you're saying a 30W (8ohm) amp would be OK for 87db and 4 ohm speakers, which the ELS303s are??
Click to expand...

All depends how loud you want it to go and with how much headroom. As your speakers are 4 Ohm they will draw twice as much current from your amp at a given output Voltage as a set of 8 Ohm speakers... So, if the amp was "perfect" it would give 60 Watts into 4 Ohm speakers. In practice for a cheaper end of the spectrum amp you would probably get something like 45 Watts into your 4 Ohm speakers... but it will be "struggling" more to deliver this than it would giving 30 W into 8
For an average UK living room and the sort of volumes most seem to play at (domestically acceptable :confused:) it should be fine.
 
Amps definitely sound different. I've used Linn, Naim, Sony, NAD and EAR amps.

The EAR V20 was far superior in every department. It's the only valve amp that I've used for a number of years.

Jack
 
Simple. Only ever had the Electrocompaniet and the Naim. Is that a crime?
 
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