My experience with ganFet amps is that they sound boring at any volume level, let alone low volume setting. They just don’t “project” music like class A/AB amps do. I’ve only listened at length to one of these and I owned one and both were disappointing in comparison. Mids are a bit sucked out and bass is loose and not as textured in comparison. Tonality is worse for sure. Yes, they are clean up top, but it’s just boring as compared to my SS amp. They lack the “bite” of a good ss amp, or tube amp for that matter. My ss amp also had slightly less hiss with the volume cranked with no source material playing. I wanted to like these new class D amps, but nope.
Low Level Listening and Distortion
Would some amps sound better at lower levels due to distortion being produced at a lower sound level than another? In other words, a "clean" sounding amp (think stereotypical class D) sounds better to me at higher volumes while another amp sounds much louder than the class D at higher levels but great at lower levels, which I assume is our ears translating distortion into "louder" in our heads. Is it the job of a preamp to be sure the amp sounds the same at all levels or is this just impossible to make the sound that linear? I have one of the newest GaNFET amps from a well-respected designer/manufacturer playing at the moment and it sounds boring at low levels but good at higher levels. Not surprisingly it also sounds quieter at the same matched volume levels (using white noise) than the tube amps I also have. I hope I explained my question so it can be understood. Thanks.
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- 33 posts total
Interesting. That’s pretty much what I’m hearing. Do you think my theory about distortion could be the issue? Distortion may cause/trick our minds into thinking depth, three dimensionality, wide soundstage, etc. so the lack of distortion of these newer class D amps leads to the opposite? I will say the AGD amps I heard didn’t sound like this but we know aural memory is rubbish so I could be and probably am wrong. I’ll have to try and hear the AGD again. |
Most amplifiers reduce distortion as volume goes up. Take a look at the distortion vs. output of a linear amp (figure 5) below.
It's main job is to act as a buffer with variable gain. The buffer part is that the source doesn't see a variable resistance. Tubes often lack an output buffer though so the preamp itself may be subject to volume control variances. The preamp can't compensate for problems in the amp though. The difference you are hearing may be due to speaker impedance / amp interaction. It's possible one amp is responding more to the speaker load than the other. If that depresses the midrange, at low volumes that may be helpful.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/luxman-l-509x-integrated-amplifier-measurements |
- 33 posts total