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"Voiced"?

P

PBB

pfm Member
How can a designer/manufacturer "voice" an amp without knowing what the speaker chosen by the end user is? Is that based on some crazy assumption that the one component that is the hardest to design is somehow "neutral"?

So can one then assume that a full line manufacturer voices its amps to sound just right with its speakers or with a given model of speaker in its line?

Should I then assume a fine synergy between an Osiris amp and RS 10 speakers by reason of some deft voicing?

Thanks.
 
PBB said:
How can a designer/manufacturer "voice" an amp without knowing what the speaker chosen by the end user is? Is that based on some crazy assumption that the one component that is the hardest to design is somehow "neutral"?

So can one then assume that a full line manufacturer voices its amps to sound just right with its speakers or with a given model of speaker in its line?

Should I then assume a fine synergy between an Osiris amp and RS 10 speakers by reason of some deft voicing?

Thanks.
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Your assumption is correct. The manufacturer will "voice" the product to sound what it thinks is right with its preferred reference speakers. Hence, Rega will voice their amps with their speakers. Like wise Anthem will Paradigm and NAD will use PSB etc.
 
It’s a term more used for speakers, though obviously there is a synergy between some products and not others, e.g. you’d certainly not choose the same amp to drive Western Electric cinema horns and Apogee Scintillas. Given the huge range of speaker technologies, designs and usage contexts there are inevitably outliers, but the vast majority of amps are just flat response, low distortion and fairly universal in application, certainly if one limits speakers to the usual bog standard little moving coil box designs. Things really only get interesting/controversial beyond that mass market base.
 
Why should an amplifier be deliberately given a distinctive sound? It should have a power output adequate for the speaker load it is intended to drive, a flat frequency response and low output impedance. Pleasing controls and box are a bonus. End of story.
 
Deliberately restricting bandwidth, significant output resistance, intentional harmonic distortion all happen
 
Polypropylene vs PIO coupling capacitors are another method to tailor the sound of an amp...when applied it’s usually to a valve amp.
 
PBB said:
How can a designer/manufacturer "voice" an amp without knowing what the speaker chosen by the end user is? Is that based on some crazy assumption that the one component that is the hardest to design is somehow "neutral"?

So can one then assume that a full line manufacturer voices its amps to sound just right with its speakers or with a given model of speaker in its line?

Should I then assume a fine synergy between an Osiris amp and RS 10 speakers by reason of some deft voicing?

Thanks.
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Ayre's designs are voiced, as are AMR/iFi's. That pinch of harmonic distortion is intentional. It comes from deliberate choices in the design.
 
clivem2 said:
Polypropylene vs PIO coupling capacitors are another method to tailor the sound of an amp...when applied it’s usually to a valve amp.
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PIO will certainly do that, they can add a lot of subjective warmth to the sound. Some can sound more 'creamy and smooth' with others more 'sparkly'.
 
tuga said:
Ayre's designs are voiced, as are AMR/iFi's. That pinch of harmonic distortion is intentional. It comes from deliberate choices in the design.
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Real high end designers engineer the 'right' sort of distortion into their amps. ;)

A bit of 2nd harmonic can go a long way to turn the 'clinical' into the 'musical'... :p keeping odd harmonics as low as possible also a good thing, even at the expense of increased even harmonics.
 
There are deliberate things that can be done, some mentioned in the thread above. Sometimes, though, just engineering high performance will result in something that people may think is 'voiced', for example wide bandwidth, fast slew and very low output impedance. It's not a deliberate voicing at all, nothing to do with matching to a loudspeaker, but those design choices are easily heard.

Other things are identifiable too, and aren't exactly 'voicing' - at least not voicing to a loudspeaker. For example increased second order distortion will result in (among other things) reduced left to right imaging, but more third order distortion results in less front to back imaging. Striving for zero distortion seems a valid design choice.

I'm sure some designers voice their amplifiers, but in our opinion the better ones don't. As Tony says, Loudspeakers may be a different thing. And, regardless of whether voicing has deliberately been engineered, synergy is always an issue.
 
Yomanze said:
Real high end designers engineer the 'right' sort of distortion into their amps. ;)

A bit of 2nd harmonic can go a long way to turn the 'clinical' into the 'musical'... :p keeping odd harmonics as low as possible also a good thing, even at the expense of increased even harmonics.
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In my experience "clinical" is the result of some for of distortion (or another), not lack of harmonic distortion. :cool:
 
I think the problem comes when you have the 'zero distortion' on paper sounding not good. There are a lot of design decisions that come into how an amp sounds, so I still think that all amps are 'voiced' to an extent, out of choices from topology through to component & PCB layout / circuit tuning choices. I was being a bit flippant with my above post, because there are many different amp styles & approaches that all sound very good, of which one method includes embracing a bit of THD. :)
 
tuga said:
In my experience "clinical" is the result of some for of distortion (or another), not lack of harmonic distortion. :cool:
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I think so too... digital for example can have a 'glare' and 'harshness' that THD measurements don't pick up.
 
ABCaudio said:
There are deliberate things that can be done, some mentioned in the thread above. Sometimes, though, just engineering high performance will result in something that people may think is 'voiced', for example wide bandwidth, fast slew and very low output impedance. It's not a deliberate voicing at all, nothing to do with matching to a loudspeaker, but those design choices are easily heard.

Other things are identifiable too, and aren't exactly 'voicing' - at least not voicing to a loudspeaker. For example increased second order distortion will result in (among other things) reduced left to right imaging, but more third order distortion results in less front to back imaging. Striving for zero distortion seems a valid design choice.

I'm sure some designers voice their amplifiers, but in our opinion the better ones don't. As Tony says, Loudspeakers may be a different thing. And, regardless of whether voicing has deliberately been engineered, synergy is always an issue.
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In my view, "voicing" is adding distortion, even if it's only a bit of frequency response EQ.

On the other hand, an amplifier with "wide bandwidth, fast slew and very low output impedance" will probably produce very very little distortion. It's as high fidelity as it gets.
 
Yomanze said:
I think the problem comes when you have the 'zero distortion' on paper sounding not good. There are a lot of design decisions that come into how an amp sounds, so I still think that all amps are 'voiced' to an extent, out of choices from topology through to component & PCB layout / circuit tuning choices. I was being a bit flippant with my above post, because there are many different amp styles & approaches that all sound very good, of which one method includes embracing a bit of THD. :)
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There are a lot of reasons for 'zero distortion' on paper sounding not good.

The first one is obvious: not sounding good is, for the most part, a matter of taste. We all have one and it tends to be different from person to person.

Secondly there are many types of distortion and some measurements, even in a comprehensive set, are overly simplistic in the way that they assess a particular aspect of performance.

Finally, even if your amplifier is really the proverbial "straight wire with gain" there's still a piece of equipment upstream and another one downstream.
 
All suggestions above of amps being voiced are complete and utter rubbish. Strange how people who don't know a capacitor from a carrot never mind having ever designed an amplifier before seem to think they're in a position to comment on such things.... I should be used to this by now:rolleyes:
 
Arkless Electronics said:
All suggestions above of amps being voiced are complete and utter rubbish. Strange how people who don't know a capacitor from a carrot never mind having ever designed an amplifier before seem to think they're in a position to comment on such things.... I should be used to this by now:rolleyes:
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So you can't make design decisions that will affect, for example, output impedance. Why is it that some amps have it high and others low?

For example, isn't there a direct correlation between Ayre's discrete zero feedback circuit design and the fact that its DACs and amplifiers always show a pinch of 2nd and 3rd order distortion?
 
All the way to SETs with a generous helping of 2nd and 3rd harmonic to add "detail" and and a high output resistance to mess up speaker balance. Some people just don't like fairly ideal amplifiers and its not because of some mystical distortion that we can't measure yet.
 
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