2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.

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Danny Richie

2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« on: 2 Apr 2007, 09:36 pm »
The other thread (pre-posting of the results) was already 19 pages long. So lets pick up with the discussion of the results here.

See the results posted here: http://www.stereomojo.com/

NealH

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Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #1 on: 3 Apr 2007, 12:15 am »
My complements for this review and, entire activity for that matter.  I did not realize it was a blind session.  No wonder it took some time to compile and organize the results.  I get the distinct impression that it was purely sound that drove opinions, not hype or vanity.  One of the reasons I like blind sessions.  Well done and congrats to the vendors that participated.

Nice comments on those LS-6's also.  Frankly, from what I read they may be the unsung star of the show. 

arthurs

Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #2 on: 3 Apr 2007, 01:04 am »
Thanks, I may have actually been a bit over-controlling but I did want it to be purely on how it sounded, nothing else, and I'd say we got that.  I'll let the other guys chime in as they pick up the thread though.  I would also congratulate the vendors.  If you read all the shootout comments, you'll see quickly there's not a bad piece among the bunch and the decisions were by and large very challenging and came down to personal preference.  The discussion afterwards was all about how damn close these were, and how good they all were.  Build quality across the board was solid, I wouldn't have any qualms about any of these from a quality perspective, and the cool thing for me is I've now heard enough of these amps to make some sort of sane comment on any of them to someone considering buying one of them.  And frankly, nothing taken away from the Trends or the Cary,  they should all be considered because they are all quality pieces and in my mind there's a 100% chance one of them will fit a buyers needs or goals for their system. 

Caveat:  As James wrote in the intro to the piece however, one should always depend on their ears to make their buying decisions....

Eld

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Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #3 on: 3 Apr 2007, 01:09 am »
Congrats on a great article and a job well done.

Thanks Art, Danny, James and rest of the volunteers for doing the comparison, excellent information for us digital fans.

I'm really grateful for the chance to listen to the LS-6.  They are just plain awesome.  The things that stood out the most on the tested materials are a gigantic soundstage with great depth and clarity in the midrange.

Art's room is also an unsung star.  I just hope one day I can get an audio room half as nice.

As an observer, my vote for the overall "winner" in this setup is the Cary.  The Trends clipped too easily when a little juice was needed, making the distorted bass really unenjoyable.  :D

Danny Richie

Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #4 on: 3 Apr 2007, 01:19 am »
I'll note a couple of things.

1) James mentioned at the end of the integrated page that the Trends unit was being run wide open. It was running at it's limits, but not with the volume control all the way up or something. It was able to product peaks near the 80db level in a big room with fairly efficient speakers, but we couldn't have asked more out of it without it giving out and compression.

My issues with it when I had it here was that I really couldn't get my heavy speaker cables, with Vampire solid Copper spades, under the binding post and still be able to get the RCA's on. If you are going to pick one of these units up be prepared to use a speaker cable with banana plugs.

2) These things really sound different with different power cords.

I was first auditioning one of the integrated amps here in my system and I started with the stock power cord. The sound stage was a bit two dimensional. Everything was a bit stacked up in the middle and compressed. The bass was a little on the light side too and sluggish. This was even plugged into my Dodd Audio balanced power supply.

I thought that this thing should sound a lot better than this. It was still earlier on in the burn in stages but still it was kind of ridiculous.

So I powered it down, unplugged it, and pulled one of the power cables from one of my nearby Dodd Audio tube amps, plugged it in, and power it back up.

This was a custom cable made by Dave Elledge. It's a 12 gauge cable, heat treated, cryo treated, the works... a great cable.

The change was greater than anything I have ever swapped power cords on. The sound stage opened up. There was space between instruments and vocals. The bass tighten up and easily played lower. This was not subtle.

I highly recommend good power cables with these integrated amps. It makes a world of difference.

There was also a slip up in the A/B comparisons on integrated amps.

All amps were keep powered up on a standard wall outlet and sharing a large power strip. When on deck each integrated was plugged into its own dedicated wall plug that was a dedicated circuit that had nothing else in the house on it.

The slip up was when one of the integrated amps was played for one song (the first song) still plugged into the common circuit and power strip.

We listened through the first song, then Art said, wait a minute, do over (or something). It was powered down, then back up and we heard the same song again on the same integrated. It didn't even sound the same. The difference was NOT subtle. We were asking afterwards what happened and what the deal was. We were all a bit surprised at how much difference the dedicated circuit made.

arthurs

Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #5 on: 3 Apr 2007, 01:24 am »
Yeah, I forgot about that Danny, that was a pretty distinct improvement that would make the case for dedicated circuits for anyone who heard it. 

I do want to note for the manufacturers, that mistake was made on the first amp on the first shootout, and was the only slip up of it's type...I made sure of it after hearing what that could do with the sound...


Danny Richie

Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #6 on: 3 Apr 2007, 01:31 am »
Oh yea, one other thing.

The Flying Mole gear arrived the day before the comparison. It played right out of the box and may not have had any burn in time on it at all, unless it was played by the manufacturer before it was sent out (integrated).

That might have hurt it some. The rest of what was there had been played off and on for many hours prior to the event. Some gear was used too and well played.

The Flying Mole amp was played for many hours during the week before the amp comparison the next week. So the amp was fine.

FJK

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Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #7 on: 3 Apr 2007, 01:55 am »
Thanks guys. I hope and I am sure all this hard work will pay off for Danny and Stereomojo. 
Some have said digital amps have been known to be somewhat lacking in treble reproduction. Also I see a few threw a bigger soundstage than some others.
Was there a consensus or can any of the participants comment on which amplifiers had the sweetest treble and deepest soundstage.

Daygloworange

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Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #8 on: 3 Apr 2007, 02:02 am »
I just read the Amp review a little while ago. What a cool read. All the amps have specs, but it's pretty interesting when one amp wins 6 votes to 1.

Well controlled, consistent, and done blind. No B.S.

Of course it would have been cooler if I was there hearing it, instead of reading about it.  :(

Great job guys, it was fun to read about it.

Danny,

Interesting comments on the little boo boo in forgetting to change over circuits on that one amp, and the effect it had on the sound.

Cheers

AK

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Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #9 on: 3 Apr 2007, 02:16 am »
cool, I really like that onkyo amp. I would consider buying one if I didn't have so many amps already :)

Audioexcels

Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #10 on: 3 Apr 2007, 03:16 am »
This is likely impossible, but is there any amps out of ALL the amps tested that really stuck out?  There are winners, of course, but would say the Onkyo even be a competition to one of the last two in the power amplifiers section?

Thanks a lot for the rundown.  Very very good stuff indeed!!!

Tweaker

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Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #11 on: 3 Apr 2007, 04:09 am »
Great job, everyone. Not an easy task.  
A couple questions. I'm a little curious about why no orchestral music used for the power amp shootout, and, is there a distinguishing "sound" these type of amps have compared to solid state or tubed? What, if anything about the way they sound, sets them apart?

arthurs

Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #12 on: 3 Apr 2007, 04:17 am »
We felt like "Church" had a lot of dynamic swings, complexity, soundstaging, etc....I can see where no orchestral the second Saturday looks a bit odd now....

RAW

Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #13 on: 3 Apr 2007, 06:02 am »
Well done all involved.
I think from the documentation lttle is left to be questioned.
Thanks for all the work it took to complete this large task.

Milehighguy

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Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #14 on: 3 Apr 2007, 06:36 am »
One observation about the Trends...
It has the ability to easily be turned in to a power amp by switching some internal jumpers, which then bypasses the volume control, and so it could have been evaluated in both the integrated and power amp divisions.
As for being tempted to rush out and buy one, I sure did buy one! $130 is cheap thrills!  :D I also bought the original T-amp for an even cheaper $44, for fun, and for portable use hooked up to a portable CD player if I'm at a flea market for instance, and want to test some speakers.
I also bought the little DOT on sale for $400, so I can do my own test comparison! It has that 30 day trial...

lonewolfny42

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Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #15 on: 3 Apr 2007, 06:46 am »
Thanks to all involved....nice job !!  :beer:

robert1325

Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #16 on: 3 Apr 2007, 07:07 am »
 aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa aa

Thanks,   I posted the link for the shootout on two dutch forums and diyaudio  :thumb:

Loftprojection

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Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #17 on: 3 Apr 2007, 11:27 am »
Thanks for the review, very fun and interesting read.

I have a question for the people that were there.  I know this wont be an objective answer like the blind test but how do you feel these integrated digital amps would have done if there had been a "regular" integrated in the mix?  Not a $10k type but let's just say something in the same budget as the expensive ones that were there, a $1-3k integrated that has a good reputation, a Creek, Naim, etc...

Thanks again.

robert1325

Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #18 on: 3 Apr 2007, 11:35 am »
As you see in my signature, I own the trends ta-10 at the moment... It's the best amp i've had .    My first amp was a cambridge audio 640A and the next one was a  mid-fi chinese SS integrated...
« Last Edit: 3 Apr 2007, 12:31 pm by robert1325 »

jimsam

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Re: 2007 digital amp shoot out discussion thread.
« Reply #19 on: 3 Apr 2007, 12:15 pm »
It's funny that the runt of the litter -- the smallest, least expensive amp in your test batch -- ended up taking top honors in the integrated category. I'll bet there's not a person who's connected the Trends TA-10.1 to their system who didn't sit back and chuckle at its diminutive size alongside their other equipment. I've seen larger wall-warts!

This article was particularly interesting to me because I recently put together a small list of relatively inexpensive integrated amps I was trying to choose between, and your article included all but one of them. While any one of the amps included would be worth owning, it's always helpful to hear varying opinions. There's one thing about the Trends amp I'm not sure I'm clear about, though. Other reviewers have noted that turning the TA-10's volume up too far can produce distortion. The shootout article mentions that the Trends amp was "run wide open - volume all the way up." Regarding this, Danny has stated here at the forum: "It was running at it's limits, but not with the volume control all the way up or something." I'm not sure how to interpret this. Could you please clarify how the Trends amp's volume was set?