When someone tells you it's a $40,000 amp, does it sound better?
I've always been a little bit suspicious when gear costs more than $25,000 . At $25,000 all the components should be the finest, and allow room for designer Builder and the dealer to make some money.
I mean that seems fair, these boxes are not volume sellers no one's making a ton of money selling the stuff.
But if I'm listening to a $40,000 amplifier I imagine me Liking it a whole lot more just because it costs $40,000. How many people have actually experienced listening to a $40,000 amplifier. It doesn't happen that often and usually when you do there's nothing else around to compare it to.
I'm just saying expensive gear is absolutely ridiculous. It's more of a head game I'm afraid. Some how if you have the money to spend, and a lot of people do, these individuals feel a lot better spending more money for something. Now you own it, and while listening to it you will always be saying to yourself that thing cost $40,000 and somehow you'll enjoy it more.
HiFi separate components, manufactured in very small quantities, have to be priced very high to cover huge R&D cost, internal parts cost more in lower quantities, tooling setup cost, ppl training, sales and marketing travel, exhibitions etc. Internal component quality and overall design of my Accupase amp exceed many, significantly more expensive amps, because it was produced in higher quantities. Second amp I have is a class-A custom made, beast with 40 TO3 metal housing bipolar complimentary transistors, and amp has two separate power supplies with 700VA toroid transformers for each ch., practically same as two mono-blocks. Measurements, including max output current, distortions etc are stellar, but I am not using it much because max power I need is about 15W, for my 89db/m sensitivity speakers.
The guy I bought my Colosseum from was going to Mephisto Solo monoblocks. 200w Class A each monoblock. I’m sure they sounded better than the Colosseum stereo amp. The key to moving up the ladder is finding someone who is upgrading and who is crazier than you are. The monoblocks are $190k a pair.
My seller is a well known electrical engineer. He was running crazy huge wiring throughout his house, AWG 3/0? I can’t remember. It mattered to him.
The seller of my Cantata speakers was converting his three car garage into a listening room so he needed bigger speakers.
Well, I have $34K mono block amps and a $22K stereo amp (see my user ID) and no question the mono blocks produce much better sound than the $22K ones or the Pass $10K amps they replace. I think a total of 4 people have seen my system in the last 20 years, so it is not for show.
It’s funny, I don’t find the power bill to be that prohibitive. Maybe the amp adds $20-40 a month, I’m not sure. My electricity bills are around $175-200 a month. I also charge my Tesla at home so I don’t know how much it costs to keep that charged up to 75%. I don’t drive much, though, and I certainly don’t run the Colosseum 24x7, lol.
At the moment, I am sad, as my beloved amp has a crackle in one channel so I have to arrange for a way to ship the 175lb monster to a repair center.
Look at Gryphon’s Apex There is always a sky above a sky, as they say.
True Class A amplifiers require large power supplies, huge heat sinks, have many output devices, consume lots of electricity, and generate a lot of heat. They’re expensive to build. My Colosseum has 48 Sanken bipolar transistors and can generate 160w at 8ohms and 1250w at 1 ohm. It’s all Class A. There can be no crossover distortion because the transistors never turn off. I think the sound is glorious and that there is no substitute for Class A amplification.
That’s one massive beast of a Class A amplifier - not to mention the power bill it produces..! I know, because I too am very fond of true Class A amplifiers. There’s this effortless smoothness/liquidity and natural warmth to a good such amplifier that’s addictive. The Class A amplifier I’m using is only 30W/8ohms, but it also only handles frequencies from ~600Hz on up, actively, while looking directly into a 111dB sensitive compression driver and its associated horn. Suddenly 30W gets you a long way - if it even outputs more than a single watt or two, indeed typically only a fraction of it and with all that entails with regard to miniscule distortion levels. With a closer to "normal" 91dB sensitive pair of speakers, passive at that, one would need 3kW to - on paper - equate the SPL-scenario of the 111dB/30W combo mentioned, driving a passive full-range load at that. One shivers by the thought of a 3kW true Class A amplifier...
True Class A amplifiers require large power supplies, huge heat sinks, have many output devices, consume lots of electricity, and generate a lot of heat. They’re expensive to build. My Colosseum has 48 Sanken bipolar transistors and can generate 160w at 8ohms and 1250w at 1 ohm. It’s all Class A. There can be no crossover distortion because the transistors never turn off. I think the sound is glorious and that there is no substitute for Class A amplification.
"How many people have actually experienced listening to a $40,000 amplifier”
I am listening music, not the amp. Amp is just a one piece of sound setup I have selected for my home. my current amp cost $10k and it is driving pair of $4k speakers. max power I typically use is 10W, amp rated 100W. amp was matched together with speakers, speakers' position, cables, for best time response, decent FR, and to minimize distortions. amp has damping factor of 800, and power BW of 5Hz-300000Hz.
I am doubt $40k amp has higher value other than prestige, expensive look etc., please provide me model # to check.
I must have watched the Ron Carter special at the same time you did. An excellent presentation and it filled in some gaps for me. It also prompted me to pull out a number of my CDs and LPs featuring Ron Carter and enjoy them all over again. I then found a few other recordings via streaming including what is now one of my favorites—-“Chemistry” with Houston Person.
As far as Ron’s stereo goes, I was a little surprised that he seems to use CDs almost exclusively but I was more than a little surprised he was playing them on a boom box instead of through the nice looking speakers shown in the video. I later found out they are Tetra 606 speakers which sold in the $30K range. Not too shabby! I’ve never heard the Tetras but I bet Ron’s bass sounds great on them.
I’m at the extreme other end of the spectrum, with a great value Chinese DAC (Gustard), a fantastic 600$ active crossover (Sublime Acoustic), "gadget" priced low power Chinese class D amps (those cost the price of a meal in a decent restaurant), a great vintage preamp (with too much gain for my system and soon to be replaced with a DIY Pass B1), DIY fully horn loaded speakers (probably around 2000$ global investment as I bought the bass horns ready made second hand), AliExpress cables, Russian capacitors, second hand JMLab subwoofers...
BUT I’ve spent 20 years putting the system together and fine-tuning it.
Are those cheap components as good as high end components? No, of course they aren’t. It would be completely foolish to expect them to be.
Does it feel like I’m listening to a high end system when I sit in the sweet spot and play my favorite records? To my ears, yes, and I do have friends with proper high end stuff that I listen to regularly (and conversely, they listen to my system) and visit hi-fi shows as much as I can, and I don’t feel too frustrated. it’s not only how much you spend, it’s what you make of it, and I’m sure a poorly assembled system of very expensive elements could probably sound much worse than what I own.
While I do envy the ABILITY that some have to purchase the best electronics, I no longer barf in front of that forever unattainable gear.
The other evening I watched the wonderful special on the legendary Ron Carter, and noticed that his music collection is on CDs played through what looked to be a rather modest stereo system. :)
The other advantage of easier to drive speakers is the amplifier, regardless of technology, will make less distortion. That will result in a smoother and more transparent presentation, since a lot of that added distortion will be higher ordered harmonics to which the ear is keenly sensitive, and otherwise distortion tends to obscure detail.
Absolutely, that's a very important aspect I failed to mention - thank you. And sadly very few speakers made today are 16-ohm load, which it seems is another means to lower amp distortion. Not least also having an amplifier only cover a limited frequency span actively, like freeing it from the lower midrange on down, is a liberating measure to lower distortion.
On the other hand, with an easier speaker load sans passive cross-overs, not least with speakers more efficient, you have a much better outset with less power needed to accommodate topologically more simple and cheaper amps, while maintaining the same (or more) headroom/SPL envelope. To me at least, that's the better hand to be dealt, while saving you a lot of money.
The other advantage of easier to drive speakers is the amplifier, regardless of technology, will make less distortion. That will result in a smoother and more transparent presentation, since a lot of that added distortion will be higher ordered harmonics to which the ear is keenly sensitive, and otherwise distortion tends to obscure detail.
It can get terribly confusing and I just wish your phraseology could've done a better job communicating what you're probably thinking.
Apologies for not being able to bring about my views more clearly. I'll try and expand on them in a hopefully more concise (but not necessarily more compressed) manner below.
I think I have A real interest in what you're trying to say. I believe you're trying to distinguish between efficient and less efficient speakers.
Speaker efficiency is only part of and indeed my secondary issue here, but it certainly is an important parameter in making more effective use of the amplifier power at hand. More on that later.
Whereas higher power amps are used to drive…… and this is where I run into a problem with what I'm trying to read here. I guess with the higher powered amps maybe they should be less powerful because if speakers were designed better you won't need all these additional watts which are now being used to push the delicate analog signal through all the filters.
My primary concern is how passive filters, complex ones in particular, become a "bottleneck" between the amplifier and speakers. Negatively affecting the control over the combined set of drivers it has a given amp putting some effort into handling the full-range frequency spectrum via the passive filter/driver combo it looks into, and depending on the amp this can severely limit its power envelope and overall performance; you could have a, say, 200W class D amp struggling with a heavy filter load, or a 30W class A ditto handling the same with relative ease. Wattages only tell you so much, but in any case both amps can't "see" and control the drivers directly, and thus only so much of their potential is utilized - as well as each individual driver's ability to "mimic" more closely the output signal coming from amp. One amp scenario would definitely be preferable over the other, though.
It follows that with passive speakers, the multi-way ones with complex/heavy load filters in particular, overall amp sturdiness and load resilience is paramount to harness the potential of the speakers, and to achieve this with power headroom to spare - in addition to unimpeded, great sound quality - one could wind up shelling out serious dough for such amplifiers. Conversely, actively configured speakers with dedicated amp channels seeing directly into their respective driver (or driver segments), sans any intervening passive cross-over parts, will make much more effective use of their amplifiers both with regard to power capacity (i.e.: actively you'd need less power to equate a passive scenario) and sound quality. Not only would a cheaper amp actively be potentially comparable to a much more expensive ditto passively, it might very well surpass it as such being given superior load conditions, and this is where the context of this discussion matters.
Designing more powerful amplifiers with the complexities involved here, pragmatics would dictate it's not as much about gaining sound quality than it is trying to merely maintain the fundamentals of it in the midst of the challenges posed. This being so I'd claim the overall advantage found with the sound of large, very powerful and more expensive amplifiers coupled to floor-standing, multi-way, lower efficiency and passively configured high-end speakers is mostly due to the power reserve and resilience to load presented here, than any "added" excellence of the core design. On the other hand, with an easier speaker load sans passive cross-overs, not least with speakers more efficient, you have a much better outset with less power needed to accommodate topologically more simple and cheaper amps, while maintaining the same (or more) headroom/SPL envelope. To me at least, that's the better hand to be dealt, while saving you a lot of money.
Speaker efficiency - that is, the higher it is - is definitely a boon here, but with it typically also comes changes in design principle and size that makes the "all things being equal"-stance a more difficult one to go by. I myself adhere to the more efficient (and larger) segment of speakers, and driven fully actively provide a range of benefits that are immensely worthwhile to me, but it also means "buying into" another range of speakers that - and I believe this mostly comes down to aesthetics, size issues and conjecture - many may not be willing to accept.
Crickey, that went on for long :/ Did it make you any wiser?
This weekend I heard PBN reference amps…. The system was awesome and in some way very expensive other way’s priceless.
The cost of something should never be confused with the value of something.
There are many audio equipment options fat a variety of prices. And what you choose is a bit like the pursuit of life liberty and happiness. Go for it.
I never set out to buy an amp with an MSRP of $40k, it just happened after decades of putting together systems and deciding I liked Class A amplification. I started by having old vintage gear restored and ended up with a Sumo Gold, a 90lb Class A amp that ran hot as heck and needed two fans to keep it cool. I loved the sound but not the fan noise. Getting that amp up and running cost me a few thousand. I rescued it from a pawn shop on the bay.
Later, wanting to ditch the fan noise and hear something else, I looked around the industry to see who was building no holds barred Class A designs and listened to Gryphon and was sold. You can get a $40k amp for around half that on the used market.
I don’t go for $40k power cables. I look for components that will improve the sound quality the most and I think amplifiers do that the most, probably followed by speakers.
The Gryphon Colosseum did not disappoint me. I love the smoothness of the sound and the ease at which it handles large orchestral music. I think there is no substitute for Class A amplification.
People immediately think of money but I look at the joy I get out of something I buy. My stereo and my piano, a Yamaha DYUS5 upright, have provided me with many happy hours.
I know it totally sucks! Trust me I was there when I was younger and could only afford Naim gear then only Mola Mola after and it takes time to get better gear than that stuff!
"It is not just price it is sound quality I am after. You probably just heard a lot of budget stuff under 25k most of it is trash."
I don't know what to do with this comment. What does it mean to be, "after price"? Are you looking to pay more? And most gear under $25k is "trash". Wow. Just wow. I'll have to tell my friend that his $20,000 pair of Marantz 9 monoblocks don't sound amazing after all. He will be so disappointed.
It's truly heartbreaking for all of us who can't spend tens of thousands of dollars on audio amplifiers to realize that we are fated to listen to trash all day long. That totally sucks.
I think I have A real interest in what you're trying to say. I believe you're trying to distinguish between efficient and less efficient speakers. Whereas higher power amps are used to drive…… and this is where I run into a problem with what I'm trying to read here. I guess with the higher powered amps maybe they should be less powerful because if speakers were designed better you won't need all these additional watts which are now being used to push the delicate analog signal through all the filters. And while doing so it may be harmful to the overall outcome of getting Beautiful unimpeded Music signals reproduced.
It can get terribly confusing and I just wish your phraseology could've done a better job communicating what you're probably thinking.
Abnormal market behavior where consumers purchase the higher-priced goods whereas similar low-priced (but not identical) substitutes are available. It is caused either by the belief that higher price means higher quality, or by the desire for conspicuous consumption (to be seen as buying an expensive, prestige item).
I wish to take exception at the less than precise and loaded wording of this quote from someone writing on Monash University official website. Just for the record, nothing more.
Delete the word abnormal and it becomes a close (but imperfect) explanation to what theoretical micro-economics may offer, where all manner of consumer preferences are carefully investigated. There is no judgement as to what is normal or abnormal.
There is truth in the words 'belief' and 'desire'. The motives are not so easily conveyed - that is psychology.
One example I've seen given to showcase this is college tuition. Colleges found that if they decrease tuition enrollment goes down and goes up when they increase it.
Another example is Campagnolo, a well-known bicycle parts brand. Rather than price according to a formula, they price according to what the market will bear.
Exactly. For some reason though there's the sense of this permeating blanket of suppressing any notion of such expensive gear being also, and maybe not least a way of accommodating/is a symptom of what you describe above.
However, very expensive and overbuilt monstrosities of amps can also be a symptom of what they're feeding, and the severe bottleneck inefficient and passive filter-heavy speakers represent. When you have to muscle up such power capacity/PSU stability to come near relative load indifference while maintaining headroom, which is really to be strived for with any serious "hifi" setup, it should be obvious the load looked into is (too) significantly draining. It's amusing actually seeing pictures of setups with amp towers (McIntosh comes to mind), per channel, lining up to such heights to even diminish the appearance of the typically small-ish speakers flanking them; here the bottleneck effect of the speakers wrt. to their power requirement is visually striking.
...
At least as inefficient, passively configured and multi-way speakers are concerned I'd be inclined to side with those feeling the bigger/more expensive amps actually do make a difference for the better, because the speaker context calls for their sturdy PSU's and prodigious power capacity, all the while trying to diminish any negative sonic side effects building amps of such massive power volume can lead to. Perhaps a crude/simplistic measure as a generalizing stance at least, my approach (with exceptions) would be to limit linear PSU-supplied amps to no more than ~100W per channel (i.e.: class A/B, lower for class A), and use the more efficient class D topology above that power requirement. The former to the central midrange on up (or if sensitivity and SPL need allows, below that range as well), and the latter below that. If power requirement is an issue in the central to upper octaves, address speaker sensitivity accordingly.
I don’t understand what motivates Jay’s audio lab? Is he trying to make money? Views are not making money even if they were quadruple what he's doing right now. I used to kind of like it but it's always the same thing. It just goes on and on and on and on and every once in a while there's something of value. He's got a great body if you're into that kind of thing
Everything he shows is ultra expensive and very few people buy the stuff. He doesn’t show you other people systems so he seems to never leave that room.
No matter what level you subscribe to on his site, all you're really getting it to see this very expensive gear; you can't hear it in any real way because it is replayed over inexpensive computer speakers.
That is true, @roxy54. And even if you route Youtube through your big rig, the fidelity is still limited by YT's compression, which is substantial. So between that and the other problems with Jay's system - especially his electric service - there's no way to tell what the gear actually sounds like from his videos. His attitude seems to be that there's no other way to hear these uber-priced products, but that's absurd: If you want to hear a Boulder amp, simply visit a dealer for an audition.
@jays_audio_labisn't a dealer for most of the gear he's promoting. And with his combative attitude, I don't think he'll be picking up many fine lines any time soon. He's just a showman.
My personal experience is everything makes a difference.You can put a $40,000 amp with a $1,000 preamp, the amp will only produce what the preamp sends it. (cables can make a difference too.) I have tried several different combinations of everything and right now my most expensive parts in my system is preamp, speakers, amp and DAC about the same, and I found Siltech cables sound the best for my ears. You just got to listen to what is best for you and your ears.
A $58 resistor from Vishay—I hope at that price it doesn’t sound like a Vishay. I saw listings for film caps that cost more than $1,000 each for the second to the top of the line (for a quote on the top line, you have to call). I have a headphone amp with a nice potentiometer (Alps RK 50). My friend wanted one for a build he was planning and called a distributor and was told that the price is $850 each with a minimum order of 50 units.
Vintage parts can be even crazier. The input transformers on my amp are now being priced at $6800 each and the output transformers are about $5000 each. I have another amp that has output transformers that cost about $22,000 a pair. I am really happy I purchased these things before the prices were that crazy.
Magic things in hifi field is that money is not always the solution. In most of time, your experience is more important and you know how it will be in the match within different equipments.
I know a lot of people with no very expensive hifi set and they are deen to listen for whole life if it's running well.
I also know at least one of my friends who has 6 set of hi-fi system in his big house, I listen 5 of them and they spend a lot but I am not impressed very much.
Getting back to amplifiers. For 50 years I have changed power cords on products to heavier gauge, and in one or two instances, converted to iec inlet ( not an easy thing to do with metal work ). Anyway, huge improvements every time. I am also very much into chassis damping ( some people refer to this as dampening, which is wrong, as this involves wetness and moisture of some kind ). Again, this is huge, to my ears, and many others ( clients, friends, and not to forget, ricevs as an example ). Heat sinks ring like crazy, on many amps, and isolating the transformer ( s ) from the chassis, is another area of achieving greatness. Take the lid ( top cover ) off of your amp, and while holding it with one hand, flick it with a finger from your other hand. It will likely " ring " in most cases. The chassis parts are important, and if a 40K amp includes much of this....great. But my experience has been, all amp chassis’s have a sound ( not different with preamps, dacs etc. Anyway, till next time. My best, MrD.
No matter what level you subscribe to on his site, all you're really getting it to see this very expensive gear; you can't hear it in any real way because it is replayed over inexpensive computer speakers. So, it's like a type of voyeurism, with the addition of his opinion of this or that being "this year's model"; and of course, that always changes.
Cults and their members are where one finds them. This is simply a general observation based on keen observation of human behavior. All in a historical context of course. :)
... this is a man who just got into audio a few years ago, and now considers himself to be an authority whose advice is worth paying for ... he immediately got defensive and came off like the bully on the playground. If I was peddling that nonsense, I might do the same thing.
It's one of the strangest threads on A'gon. Not only is he defensive, but so are his minions. It's really a fan club. The guy promotes the uber-expensive Stromtank battery system, but attacks those who point out problems with his electrical system. He's a wannabe guru and it looks like there are quite a few of them on Youtube. "Jay" charges top-tier "members" $600 a year for benefits like private "raw" zoom meetings. Weird.
Abnormal market behavior where consumers purchase the higher-priced goods whereas similar low-priced (but not identical) substitutes are available. It is caused either by the belief that higher price means higher quality, or by the desire for conspicuous consumption (to be seen as buying an expensive, prestige item). Named after its discoverer, the US social-critic Thorstein Bunde Veblen (1857-1929).
One example I've seen given to showcase this is college tuition. Colleges found that if they decrease tuition enrollment goes down and goes up when they increase it.
Another example is Campagnolo, a well-known bicycle parts brand. Rather than price according to a formula, they price according to what the market will bear.
Yes, Jay was very defensive, even though I asked members (not him), the question is a courteous way. I was interested to know how many here find his advice worth paying for. After all, this is a man who just got into audio a few years ago, and now considers himself to be an authority whose advice is worth paying for. Even if he had a background in electronics or music, his opinions would still be purely his opinions, which are worth no more than anyone else's.
Of course, he's being protective of his income stream, so he immediately got defensive and came off like the bully on the playground. If I was peddling that nonsense, I might do the same thing.
The price of top end gear does not bear that tight a relationship to the cost of the parts. The pricing is value-based. The builder compares the performance of the gear to other gear on the market and sets the price based on how it sounds as compared to the competition. Of course audio is something that not everyone agrees on what sounds good, so something priced way up in price might still not fit one's taste. But, that price is aimed at someone who likes this particular sound and is comparing the product to other like sounding gear.
Because potential buyers have limited ability to hear a wide range of gear, particularly to hear the gear in their own system, most do not even know of the range of possible sonic alternatives. A local dealer in my area that sells only tube amplification gear, almost all of it of the low-power type, often gets in customers who have never really heard what low-power tube gear can do with the right speakers. For many, it is almost a religious experience. This dealer often has to make odd deals where he is getting in gear for trade that is worth MUCH more than the gear the buyer wants to swap for--meaning the dealer would owe money to the buyer; the arrangement made is usually some kind of consignment sale of the turned in gear. At this store, it is not at all strange that the customer finds that his $40k and up amps sound much inferior to something around $10k. But, that is not to say that the $40k stuff is a rip off--it was more of a mismatch to the listener's actual preference, a preference the customer did not even know he had until experiencing the alternative.
Irrespective of a "house sound" and what may float one over the other's boat between different brands of amplifiers, there are ways to more effectively harness the potential of a given amp with how it's loaded. Looking into a passive cross-over of a speaker, not least a complex one and delivering the power over a full range spectrum under such circumstances is way more challenging and therefore more compromising wrt. performance envelope vs. seeing a pure load directly into a driver from a dedicated amp channel and over a limited frequency span. The amps functioning in the latter scenario will see their power and quality much better and easier utilized, whereas with the former the amp would ideally need to be close to impervious to load (which is saying a lot in the face of a difficult, full-range ditto) for any hopes of it to be a comparable scenario with the latter - and that is disregarding the sonic influence of the passive cross-over itself, one might add.
I'd wager a vital aspect of why a, say, $35k amp sounds better over a pair of speakers than its cheaper $20k sibling might very well come down to the fact that the more expensive amp is less affected by load and therefore has more power headroom/is more at ease operating, with all that entails. Indeed, passively configured and inefficient speakers with complex XO's call for the need of amplifiers with massive power supplies and overall sturdy build to come to life, whereas conversely in an active scenario much less is needed of the amps to still be fully up to the task, not least power-wise - again, with all that entails.
Configuring speakers actively myself I see no reason to strive for 10's of thousands $$ amplifiers when I can get by with much less. Moreover, this scenario (i.e.: active) lends the opportunity of a differentiated amp approach, where fewer quality wattages can be used in the mids to upper frequencies (even less watts the higher the speaker efficiency), and more brute force can be used in the lower regions where it's more readily required, in addition to the typical need for more damping factor here and proper driver control (this could be done passively as well with a bi-amping approach, but without the same opportunities of active to blend different amps more smoothly). Surely, when developing amplifiers it would seem that the marriage of the more ultimate in sound quality with gobs of power doesn't always go hand-in-hand, and thus differentiation of amp usage via an active setup can make even more sense.
Whether a $40k amplifier is worth the investment is up to each to decide. If it makes sense to someone to throw that amount of dough after it in the system context it's supposed to be used, go for it. It's not that I can't see the reasons why expensive amps are expensive, but coming down to it it's only saying so much: that's they're very expensive, and it figures why. I certainly wouldn't automatically assume they're the better for it compared to offerings much cheaper, depending on the context they're to be implemented.
I recently heard a system with huge Pass mono blocks, Magico M3 speakers, Techdas tt, ARC preamp and ARC phono amp. High end cabling and lots of room treatments. It sounded pretty darn impressive. But, it wasn't "tuned" to my taste. The bass was overpowering. My point is, it's all subjective. Ultimately, I liked my comparatively low priced system better than the hugely expensive one even though the expensive one was surely better by most audiophile criteria.
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