The amp is pretty important, but a lot depends on your speakers. If the speakers are meant to be driven with transistors, its likely you will not hear a lot of difference between amps. But if the speakers are meant to be driven with tube amps, you may hear pretty dramatic differences. Some speakers can be driven by both, then you can compare what the differences are between tubes and transistors and again the differences can be pretty profound.
How important is the amp?
Over the last few year I have upgraded my phono amp (Sensor Prelude), Turntable (SAC Girati Grande) etc.
But I have never upgraded my integrated amp, a Symphonic Line La Musica. At what point do you upgrade your amplifier. I have been looking at a 2nd hand RG10 mk 4 reference or maybe a Kraftwerk.
When I fool around with cable and other items I can still hear improvements. As long as I can still hear changes in my system when I upgrade I think my amp is still fine or is that a wrong train of thought.
But I have never upgraded my integrated amp, a Symphonic Line La Musica. At what point do you upgrade your amplifier. I have been looking at a 2nd hand RG10 mk 4 reference or maybe a Kraftwerk.
When I fool around with cable and other items I can still hear improvements. As long as I can still hear changes in my system when I upgrade I think my amp is still fine or is that a wrong train of thought.
Showing 2 responses by atmasphere
He insisted that it was the preamp & that I would surprised it was the preamp hence his design effort to minimize the distortion from it. Well if we are going to talk about distortion and coloration, preamps make very little of it, often a 1/10th or 1/100th of that of the amp, which in turn often pales compared to that of the speaker. Here is a wonderful set of comments condensed into an pdf by one of the world's leading designers- its well worth the read: http://jockohomo.net/data/johncurl-v.0.1.pdf |