Best Amp for Timbre, Depth and Spatial Resolution?

For soundstage look no further than Sound Lab, the big Snells, original Quads, the big Rockports, the big Kharmas, even the itty bitty LS3/5As.

Who was the bullet headed reviewer dude at Stereo Review way back when who swore up and down that amps that measure about the same sound about the same? Lots of laughs!

Julian hirsch

Mglazer wrote,

"It was Julian Hirsch (RIP), a highly respected reviewer for decades. He did not say that amps (or any other compnents) that measure the same, sound the same. What he did say was that if the measurements of two amps were very good and close to each other, both will sound very good and then it is a matter of personal taste which one prefers. In other words, he established the objective, so the buyer could apply his/her subjective taste. Most reviewers today only focus on the subjective."

Yes, he was highly respected by those that believe you can assess how an amp will sound by measuring some parameter or another. Those who do not believe in such things found out a long time ago that parameters that Julian Hirsch held dear, you know, things likeTHD and frequency response and slew rate, had little or no bearing on the subjective sonics of the amp. In fact, what we actually found out was that amps with extremely low THD sound very much worse than amps with relatively high THD. And amps with very high slew rates did not sound as good as amps with relatively low slew rates.

When you go to buy a TV you walk into the store and pick the one you can afford with the best picture, right? Why shouldn't you pick amplifiers the same way? Follow?

Zd542 wrote,

"Yes, but with TV's, the salespeople usually adjust the TV's they want to sell as best they can, and "detune" the other ones."

You get a gold star for the funniest post of the thread so far.

Nglazer, do folks demand to see the specs when buying a new TV? Of course not. That would be absurd, right? Only someone who hasn't quite figured out if he can hear the difference would be so interested in specs. Heck, people don't appear overly concerned with specs for turntables, stereo cartridges or even CD players. They ARE interested in how they sound. Do they have good bass, etc.?

Total Harmonic Distortion - irrelevant. Frequency Response - irrelevant. Slew Rate - irrelevant. Channel Separation - irrelevant. Intermodulation Distortion - irrelevant.