The Richard Clark "all amps sounds the same" test



Okay, I know there has been tons of commentary on this issue, but I have a specific question. And it will make it clear why I'm posting this amp question in the speaker threads.

I'm curious if anyone knows if Maggie 20.1s or something equally hard to drive and equally transparent has been tested? I know planars have been used on his test, but I don't know any details.

Oh - for those who don't have any idea what I'm talking about see:

http://www.tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/rcrules.htm
and
http://www.tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/index.htm

and if you google it there is almost endless commentary on it.

Okay - but I want to test the following:

Magnepan 20.1s
Pass Labs X350.5 or XA160.5
Pass Labs Pre? (Don't care as much)
EmmLabs CD Player

Then, we need a low-cost amp. Now, the trouble is, he has a reasonable request in his test, each amp has to be used within its thresholds, so no using them at 300 watts when one is rated at 30 watts. Obviously with one clipping and the other one not clipping you will hear a difference.

This also applies to a 4-ohm speaker. So, assuming someone hasn't done an extremely similar test and can just tell us the difference, the next question is what is the worst amplifier that is rated at 4 ohms? While the X350.5 is high-power, the test could be done at 85 db, so you don't need too many watts to make that work.

This would effectively answer all the "maggies need high power to by dynamic" and lots of other similar questions. Because the test is at one db level, does one amp really push more bass out of them than another?

Hey - actually wouldn't Tympani IVs be harder to drive? Maybe we should use Tympani's :).

What do people think, is this issue still alive or has someone resolved these issues? I have to think I could hear the difference and may have my wife run some singly-blind tests for me - I don't have any of the equipment above, but do have 3.6s and an Aleph 5. See how that Aleph sounds compared to some sort of $100 amp rated at 4 ohms.

Might there be a 4-ohm rated amp in a boombox or bookshelf system? I'll poke around. Sure a single op-amp chip in a bookshelf system (often what $100 system amps consist of, just a few chips) would sound worse than a Pass Labs Aleph, which Stereophile said compared to the Levinson 300 lb amps?

Oh - and the essence of my idea with this test is that perhaps the sound is 'more similar' on speakers that are easier to drive, but with 20.1s - and this is just as important - with a highly resolving ribbon speaker - the difference might become more apparent.

Oh - also, I'm not sure if he allows me to choose the music, but I have found over the years certain parts of certain passages that show the differences of components more than others. I think that would also be important - what passages are played, as on some I would believe the differences would be impossible/difficult to detect.

If I'm just repeating stuff that can be found elsewhere let me know... Just seems like we should be able to bust this test.
lightminer
And all cars drive the same, all toilet paper wipes the same, all wine tastes the same. If you can't hear/feel a difference, it doesn't bother me. Your test is a total waste of time IMO.
What's interersting to note here is that this is the same Richard Clark of car audio fame. I followed him back in the 80s from his Cadillac sedan deville to his Buick Grand National. Simply put, two of the best car audio systems I have ever heard, and better than many home systems.

But what I'm getting at is the fact that he chose expensive Alpine electronics for his show car. Surely if he believed all amplifiers working within their power bands sounded the same, he could have achieved the same results with, oh say, Pyramid (low level chinese made) amps instead. But all the stuff in his car from the head unit on back was pricey, boutique electronics. Anybody see what I'm saying?

Shakey
Yep i do. i've had two great alpine car systems, one of which would play a dave brubeck at carneguie hall cd so much better than my $3000 cd player into leak tl12+'s and stacked quad57's. go figure!
Douglas - great last post.

Atma - hadn't heard he refused to pay, would be interesting to see more on that, and who finally broke the test!! If it was a regular Joe, magazine reviewer, or just snobby audiophile like us :).

To the equipment switching issue: I know for a while Stereophile was using the Mark Levinson 320S for various comparisons because it has the ability to somehow level match per input, I don't know the exact details, but that wasn't a cheap pre at retail! (And one I strongly considered getting before getting a Supratek. And while I'm off topic the Joule Electra line pre looks amazing...) My understanding is that the guy has a recording engineering or electronics background and part of the thing per the link above is that he runs the amps under 2% THD, so for some on electrostatics that may be 60 db :), but just to say he has equipment to measure THD and all kinds of little doo-dads, and high quality switching stuff - but that is all conjecture as I haven't seen any of it. Completely agreed that how you switch will matter, and if sound is degraded - on earbuds CD ripped Flac and apple lossless sound the same, so agreed that if one part of the chain is low-level differences will be minimized.

To some comments just above about car audio - I have felt that some high end car audio has extremely good dynamics as far as comparing to home audio - that is one area where car audio does really well.

For people just reading to the end my personal conclusions is that you have to look at his constraints really really carefully. Under his constraints I think he might be right. But then if you look at his constraints and consider driving a large electrostatic speaker to concert levels, then his constraints take away some of the most imoprtant differences bewteen amps. I decided that I might very well fail his test between the Sherwood receiver I found that claims 4 ohms capability and was like $75 bucks and a Nelson Pass pure Class A 150-lb dual pair of monoblocks because under his test criteria we may not get over 55 db.

Part of his point is that amps do a particular thing, and he can eq all the 'warmth' and stuff like that out of them, he seems to think he knows precisely what an amp does and that it doesn't effect things like soundstage or some of the other 'qualities' that we ascribe to all audio equipment. He does agree that speakers, CD Players, etc., even pre-amps make a difference, but he is making a claim just about how amplifiers work, by degree from a scientific perspective, that they do one thing only, and that one thing shouldn't have an effect on some of the fuzzier criteria we ascribe to audio equipment - *and to which he does ascribe to other pieces in the chain*.

Also - everyone here - this makes me think that Parc may really be on to something. In Photography there are programs that can make digital images sort of look like various film emulsions like Velvia or Kodachrome (for those not in photograpy, films with very particular characteristics) - maybe Parc could add to its system a setting for 'mimic tube amp', 'mimic solid state amp', etc. As it is it allows for tons of adjustments that are sort of along the lines of what they guy here seems to be doing.

Parc is high quality analogue, and me with my supratek I'm not going digital pre anytime soon, but the other thing this makes me think of is some basically 99.9999% lossless Parc device embedded in a megabuck DAC/CD/digitalPre that does everything once in the digital domain and then *once* and once only goes from digital to analogue to the amp. Esoteric, EmmLabs, Meridian, Berkeley, Levinson etc. kind of companies, they could put out something like that.

Parc should 'lease' their technology for digital embedding in the total digital side just as chip companies like Burr Brown, etc. sells DAC chips to these companies and they would make money there and from the customization/consulting they do.

So one of the biggest conclusions I'm coming to from thinking through the Richard Clarke stuff is that Parc, and perhaps digital eq embedded early in the chain, might have a strong future in Audiophile land...