My Long List of Amplifiers and My Personal Review of Each!

Teaser vid.

WC,

I like the videos with you and OCD Mike.  I guess I'm a little behind here - who is he?  Just another audiophile?  Local to you?

Thanks,

Dave

Glad you were able to do the Roon vs Taiko Audio Software (TAS) comparison with OCD Mike.  Been using TAS, still in Beta, for over a year now and have not gone back to Roon. I do miss some of its functionality, but easy sacrifice for me for better SQ.

Very much looking forward to the full rollout/official version from Taiko of XMDS (to be the new software name) in the next month or two. I have faith the SQ will remain superior, perhaps even better, and hopefully has increased functionality as Jay mentioned in the video.

"OCD Mikey" is an outspoken home based audio dealer who also has his own line of cables under the Verastarr brand. His website can be seen here: https://www.11stereo.com/ 

Hi Dave,

OCD Mike has his own youtube channel - OCD Hi-Fi Guy.  Jay appeared on one of his recent videos and they agreed to visit each other's rooms to evaluate/record additional material.  Agree, fun watching them both together.

Hey just wanted to let you know I love the videos where you bring others in for the discussions. Also interviews with manufacturers.  This is a nice twist to your channel. Keep it up 👍. 

Round 1

Thanks everyone for the info on OCD Mike  :-)

Dave

ron17,

I accept your observation that the new amp on your speakers was thin, threadbare, and missing in bass compared to your Simaudio.  But look at the big picture.  You would really hate my speaker, since its sound is thinner and has less bass than any speaker discussed here.  Its degree of thinness is FAR greater than the thinness of the other amp compared to your Sim.  My speaker is still much thinner in sound driven by a fat sounding old classic tube amp, than your speaker driven by that thin sounding amp you were going to buy.  My statements are consistent with the fact that the speaker is THE most dominant factor in the character of the total system sound.

Yes, my other statement about the horns wasn't relevant to your observations, but it still illustrates that if you don't like a speaker, no amp driving it will please you.  But if you love your chosen speaker, you can get some pleasure from many different amps driving it, although of course you'll find an amp such as the Sim that maximizes your pleasure.  For Jay's XLF, it is my favorite speaker of all he has had, and I enjoy the sound from any of the ancillary components he uses with it, even the euphonic tubes, although I like it even more with the 725 preamp, and the top SS amps he has had.

I know the short previews of OCD Mikey are just that, but all he says is that the 725 and Taiko are "better, more involving, etc."  What does that mean?  I hope he clarifies what he means in the full videos to come.

It means it’s HIS preference. I like his straight forward bottom line approach. Trying to get into ALL the particulars becomes a tangled web of subjective adjectives that confuse the whole thing. To me less is more. If he said finesse or rich or etched etc I’m no closer to knowing what HE means that if he said I prefer it. All those adjectives mean something a little different to everyone. Just like when they were describing the soundstage. That meant something different to Jay than it did to OCD Mikey. Im sure there will be more details but Personally I like the simple cut to the chase approach with a Short  explanation of why. 

HIS preferences mean nothing.  "Finesse, rich, etched" at least have some meaning even if not precise.  Most useful are actual musical or technical comments, such as "the guitar is crisper with A vs B" or "bass is fuller or tighter" or "HF are more dominant than midrange" and so on.  These statements are more objective and can be respected regardless of individual preferences.  If you ask a dealer about product A, and he says he likes it better than product B, you have learned nothing, but if he describes the sound character of A and B, that is useful for the customer.

Video drops at 1245pm.ET

On the contrary, even extremely vague statements can have great value if the observer is finely attuned to the preferences of the one making the vague statements. For example, if WC says he really likes X much better than Y, that is probably enough information for any of us who are attuned to his preferences to give us useful information. I presume that OCD guy has enough content out there where such vague statements could also convey value if one were familiar enough with him.

Edit:  I meant to say "non-specific", not "vague".  There is nothing vague about "I prefer X strongly to Y," but it isn't specific as to why

I could be completely wrong, but I'm guessing that Mikey's comment about WC's Lab having studio quality sound is an indicator that WC's room is more about being a Lab where components are evaluated and compared.  I am betting that Mikey's system is more about listening and enjoying the music, not as much about studio quality sound.  Not that music cannot be enjoyed in WC's room - I'm sure it's enjoyable.   And not that Mikey's system doesn't do things technically well.   I'm just guessing that they are on each side of what might be considered the middle.  Again, just speculation - I have never seen or heard Mike's system  (does anyone have a link to his videos?). 

Dave

Mike said my room is kinda of a mastering studio. It captures what is going on with the electronics. He is into smooth and soft sounding amps because it keeps him glued to his seat. I’m not there anymore. I’m now more into the "what’s in the recording" type of sound reproduction. That said, I do not advice for some of you to be into a fully transparent and neutral system. It can get to you quite easy and it takes a ton of work to dial it in.

Cables that I had before may or may not work anymore. Preamps that I love may no longer work in this type of system. I can’t be vocal ENOUGH other than to make sure 200% you really want a neutral system. It’s far more work than a system that is more "tuned" via the electronics being used (Rowland, Luxman etc etc). 

My issue with electronics that are sweet is that everything sounds the same (all music). 

By the way, I meant neutral to the point that you can't do pleasant listening sessions during certain hours of the day because the amps don't sound great during this time. 

Yes... That's a thing that exists

The recordings are now more crucial than ever for me.  No question about it. 

Absolutely the recording is the limiting factor here. Years ago recording were so limited that audio systems were being designed to smooth over these recording flaws especially at the beginning of digital. Since then recording processes have improved and audio design  moved in a different direction. That is to be more revealing. Now audio gear has surpassed the recording and is now able to reveal the flaws in the recording. Some recording companies go through a lot of effort to minimize these flaws but they a few. So yes the recording is always the limiting factor. This is why picking gear that presents the music in a way that bring the effect of live music to each us is very personal and different for all of us. No system will please everyone. It’s subjective. You opinion is you opinion what you like some one else may not. The way Viber describes his system makes me think I wouldn’t like it. However who knows what I might think if I actually heard it. Maybe the same lol! Or maybe not. ✌️

Jay, 

You said about Mike, "He is into smooth and soft sounding amps because it keeps him glued to his seat. I’m not there anymore. I’m now more into the "what’s in the recording" type of sound reproduction."

I'm with you. What keeps me glued to my seat is the musical stimulation from hearing more of the information in the recording.  Of course, the SPL can't be too loud.

I just discovered a fantastic new small concert hall in NY.  Tiny stage projecting into a tiny hall, like a horn loaded speaker.  Sitting in front row center, 7 feet away, the piano had anvil-like grip in the entire freq range.  You should hear the FULL AND TIGHT TIGHT bass out of it.  Way beyond the sound of any speaker using conventional recordings.  But I made upfront recordings that replicate what I heard in similar venues.

3 more events at this place on monthly Mon evenings. See bohemiansNYC.org.  Anybody able to come to NY, I will get you in as my guest.  This will be more memorable than any audio show.

Next video drops this Saturday. 

Can anyone tell me what the acoustic recording of "Careless Whisper" was? That sounded incredible.

Just wait until you hear my video...I recorded a better video with my mic. He used his phone to record. 

I'm also working on my tidal playlist which I will share with you all. This will have most of the songs I've played on my channel and I will keep updating as time goes on too. 

If you have Tidal, you'll have access to my personal playlist. 

From the reduced posting here it seems that people are now spending more time on the YouTube channel than on here. Guess that shows that what Jay now is doing is really grabbing everyone’s interest more so than in the past. I find the videos with Mike interesting. There’s been speculation that he found his equipment better than Jays because of personal interests in some of it which he sells, or that he is just into his own version of what he thinks sounds good. I think it proves what Jay has maintained all along. There is no better, unless it’s better to you. 

It's all about personal preference.

And personal agendas come into play also...no free lunch guys!

I think people’s idea of REAL NEUTRALITY isn’t the same.

Real NEUTRALITY is ruthless and it will piss you off too. It doesn’t care about you or your preference. Real neutrality isn’t in the form of coffee with creamer but rather just pure black coffee which some of you can’t stomach because you get heartburn or acid reflux. The amps I have here are exactly just that: Real and nothing but the facts. If I had owned these amps in my early days, I would have probably sold them by now but because I’m now much more "seasoned" as far as audio, I actually respect what they do. You wanna know if an ethernet cables makes a difference? You want to know if an outlet changes anything? You wanna know if your set up is weak?

Is your source anemic? Are your cables lethargic? Are your cables adding too much of a good thing? These amps will answer all of that and then some. As a matter of fact, I’ll make a bold statement: these amps have exposed the boulder 2150s character as being a tad sweet and smooth. There you have it.

WC,

I definitely understand what you are saying.   And I'm probably in the camp that would like listening to the sweet and smooth of the Boulder  :-)

Dave

I think people’s idea of REAL NEUTRALITY isn’t the same.

You are right...

Saying neutrality exist in an absolute sense has no real meaning save for those who design the gear and speaks about engineering measurements before any real acoustic measurements and experience by the customers...Or for those who think their own ears is the only meter FOR ALL OF US... The problem is no ears listen nor hear in the same way and no room are the same...

For sure people idea of neutrality CANNOT be the same for a simple reason...

Engineering measurements are not acoustic measurements...

Timbre cannot be reduced to spectrum...

Timbre depends primarily upon the frequency spectrum yes, but it also depends upon the sound zones pressure of the room and the temporal dual characteristics of the perceived sound and of the physical sound. Psycho acoustic is NOT physical acoustic....

Then the most important factor cannot be the price of the gear but the acoustic factoring parameters where this gear will be embedded and these environment factors resulted from the coupling of 3 factors: our specific particular hearing history and structure, the room rightly coupled or not with the speakers for our specific ears...

We do not work small room acoustic like great hall acoustic... Reflections and time and timing play differently....

This is only my experience in my small room....

We dont listen to an amplifier: some specific ears listen to a coupled speakers/room acoustically treated-untreated controlled-uncontrolled, not to the amplifier " per se"....

Most audiophiles overestimated the S.Q. value of the costly gear and underestimated acoustical factors...I was thinking so one year ago before my extensive listening experiments...

"Real NEUTRALITY is ruthless and it will piss you off too. It doesn’t care about you or your preference. Real neutrality isn’t in the form of coffee with creamer but rather just pure black coffee which some of you can’t stomach because you get heartburn or acid reflux."

Sounds like viber's cup of tea.

"Real NEUTRALITY is ruthless and it will piss you off too. It doesn’t care about you or your preference. Real neutrality isn’t in the form of coffee with creamer but rather just pure black coffee which some of you can’t stomach because you get heartburn or acid reflux."

Sounds like viber’s cup of tea.

 These sentences Sound acoustically meaningless to me ....

Poetry is not acoustic...Only reflect a pure subjective experience which is ok but which cannot become a standard or a meter for us all....

Us pretending to own a race car because we own McLarens or Ferrari’s etc is far from the truth. We all know what a real race car looks like and performs like. You think you can go cruising in a nascar racecar in bumper to bumper traffic? How about going out on a date with a pretty lady who spent time getting herself dolled up for you but you failed to mention your car has no AC and it has a roll cage inside?

Ruthless becomes hated by default  but unfortunately that is what happens when you have colorless amplification.

We say the same thing very differently...

Save the important acoustic factor...Engineering is not acoustic...

Anyway thanks for all your works...

My best to you...

Sounds like you have had very few "colorless amplification".

@ron17 

I am starting to see that now. 

Neutrality is essential for truthful sound.

The 3 biggest offenders that color the sound in speakers are:

1. Crossover- regardless the cost of the parts they will impart a coloration.

They will rob transparency they will cause phase shift , timing errors

2. Conventional Drivers- they will store energy and will ultimately affect the sound they don’t release it as quick as the energy enters it.

3. Enclosure- regardless of the type of speaker you are using if it is utilizing a box or enclosure this will cause an asymmetrical waveform. This waveform Will cause distortion within the box and will lose the purity as if the driver itself was not contained in an enclosure. With regard to lower frequencies they will interact negatively with the room and that what is called room node issues.

2. 

So if I can just find my way around crossovers, most drivers and the cabinets, chances are I'm on my way to "uncolored sound" 😁

I think that the biggest offender that color the sound in speakers are

GRILLCLOTHS…

especially those orangy - rust colored ones from the early 70’s.

Part 2

mahgister you should post here more - i like your style

@jays_audio_lab   While you may believe that your amps are neutral, this is probably far from the case. Through history, amps have improved and become more neutral, but I think when you get to hear the generation to come and then another generation after that, you will realize how very colored your current amps are. 

All gear is colored, it is just a matter of degree. 

Some good points in your video above. One thing about the cost of replacement drivers and their relative value to the speaker, while you correctly expose the issue that the Wilson’s and the Magico’s have, with the Wilson drivers being cheap and somewhat easy to replace, while the Magico drivers are expensive and difficult to replace ( with shipping and other factors increasing the price), I think you fail to discuss one other factor. That factor is how often is one likely to replace a driver. IMO, if you consider the number of speakers of any particular brand out there and then look at the frequency of how often the drivers need a replacement, I think you would see that this is not only infrequent, but years can accrue before a replacement is required. ( sure, if little lord Fauntleroy happens to stick his finger through a driver that can mandate more immediate replacement, but otherwise?)

Therefore, the cost to replace a driver should be amortized over the number of years that it will likely become a factor...and in this case we can see that the cost in all instances comes down considerably for all speakers ( even the Magico). So, is this really something that the consumer should be that concerned about?

Lastly, there is another variable that I think is well worth while considering, and it is this: to some folk, the ’ultra high end’ is still incredibly affordable. These folk make more than the cost of your entire system in less than an hour, and they do this constantly. To others ( the majority?), the cost of the ’ultra high end’ is so far out of their reach that it is not even feasible in their wildest dreams and with their current or future earning potential! Are the folks in my first example thinking they are getting ’ripped’ off--I doubt it, are the other folks  ( assuming they have somehow saved up to acquire any of this gear) thinking they have been ’ripped’ off....???🤨

A blown driver can happen under many circumstances and not just due to age as mentioned above. I blew both tweeters on my Alexia mk1 by not paying attention to what I was doing.

We can’t amortize drivers over the amount of years we used them without any issues. It doesn’t work that way.

Nobody talks about the points I presented in my last video. How many of you knew it costs that much to fix a blown driver on a magico m series speakers? Not many people I bet..

I’m simply shinning a light where others aren’t. I report my own findings and share with you all.

"Real NEUTRALITY is ruthless and it will piss you off too. It doesn’t care about you or your preference. Real neutrality isn’t in the form of coffee with creamer but rather just pure black coffee which some of you can’t stomach because you get heartburn or acid reflux."

Sounds like viber's cup of tea."

Superficially, yes, my cup of tea.  More deeply, no.  The undertone of that quote is unpleasantness.  But the real purpose of audio equipment is to get more information out of the music you enjoy.  Neutrality is the absence of superimposed colorations on the original music.  Neutrality will reveal more information, a happy outcome. I agree with psnyder149 that grill cloth is an obvious factor imposing colorations.  Why would anyone want to subtract information with the grill cloth?  If the bare speaker is unpleasant in sound, the cloth may reduce the unpleasantness, but it also reduces the musical information retrieval.  A no-win situation, so get rid of that speaker, OR work on room placement.  But don't add warm other components which have a similar effect as the grill cloth.

Now for Jay's tantalizing statement--"As a matter of fact, I’ll make a bold statement: these amps have exposed the boulder 2150s character as being a tad sweet and smooth."  Right on!  Gryphon Mephisto monos?  Let's hear more of the real music with the 725 and these new amps!

One reason many people here like warmth is that most of these pop/rock recordings are highly processed, so neutral components reveal more of these unpleasant processing effects.  But live recordings of classical performances have minimal processing and are far superior to production studio processed recordings.  I'll post one soon to illustrate.

Here’s the recording of the live concert from last June. No audience because of covid. I went to this hall last week and was impressed by the utter naturalness and immediacy of the piano sound. I sat in the 1st row just right of center. A cheap simple video recorder was used near me. For this natural recording, there is no unpleasantness, so any warmth in playback would subtract from the delicacy of the music. The soft, delicate piano begins around 1:13. You can appreciate what I said within a few seconds. A female singer begins around 26 min.  Enjoy.