Hey I know this is from a year ago, but I just want to say that this sort of discussion is exactly what we need in the audio enthusiast world. Electrical science and engineering is the key to blowing the lid off of all the snake oil running rampant in the audio markets and we also need this knowledge to set our systems up as best as possible. Thanks so much for everything you guys are doing at Audioholics!

This was brilliant. Watched from start to finish - so good to have such knowledgeable folks discuss audio - thank you Anthony, Don and Gene.

I feel like you guys take a good look at what the common home theater guy may not be that well informed about and than inform the hell out of us about it. Absolutely invaluable and much appreciated!!

Gene - new to your channel and TOTALLY loving your approach, in depth, no bullshit approach! This series with Don and Anthony is EPIC.

Another fantastic show boys!! Thank you so much. It was extremely interesting.

Man y'all are on late!! Had to finish up watching this morning, love all the information!! Your awesome!! Thank you guy's!

Solid factual approach to the pursuit of audio perfection. Thanks gents. 👍🏻

There are lots of entertaining audio channels and I am grateful for them. But as best as I can see there are only two that increase my understanding - ASR and Audioholics. Thanks guys, your work is appreciated. Best wishes from NZ.

Yet another 🏆 hour from you guys to be included with your recent Acoustic Theory set of talks. A huge contribution from you three re: AV technology education. Kudos 💪.

So there is a lot of opinions about consumer power amplifier (and how they sound) Well I took the plunge and bought the Crown XLS1502 Drivecore class D Pro Amp. And it's awesome, pure power and clean amplification and stays cool. Just what a power amp is supost to do. No "sound", just power driving my B&W 604 S3 full range in a Dolby Atmos set up

I'm so glad I stayed until the end. I knew Gene liked the 8015. Hearing that Donnie likes it too was icing on the cake.

Anthony, your subliminal flicker worked a treat regarding the space heater. Preparedness can come at very short notice!

great video guys thanks for sharing...

I still have a anthem mrx I use for stereo and ht , hooked up to a ati (morris kessler) 7 channel .. and all magnepan driven ☺️ Never had any need to "upgrade" !

I don't know why I missed all these. These are great.

thank you, guys! Anthony killed me :P It is really entertaining.

I'm in Arizona and I use Crown like the XTI series and they tend to shut down in the summer being outside sometimes. I use it for DJ setups.

Hey guys I’m always up to learning more about audio equipment.I have b&k equipment pt3 pre-amp an ref2220 amp all monster power wires and power station.I listen to music not like normal people.I like it loud but clean. My speaker are the Klipsch legend series klf30s . I love my system and have had no problems for twenty years.

Gene, have you ever taken a serious look into the Devialet Expert Pro? One interesting spec is they have an incredibly high damping factor. Love to hear your take on them.

Based on Adioholics recommendation I have purchased Anthem STR. Best purchase ever!

Great discussion 🙂

So many companies were playing those games in the 70s that the FTC stepped in and told them that if they were going to publish power ratings, they had to be RMS, and they had to specify the bandwidth and distortion level at that power. I agree about Kenwood too. Every Kenwood integrated amp I had from the 70s to the 90s was great. I now have a 100w channel Kenwood that I bought on Ebay for $65, and it's the best sounding amp I've ever had. I prefer it to the Marantz and Arcam amps that I've owned.

Yamaha and QSC Pro Amps are very good! Perfect for Home theater and two channel audio. Specs are prestine!

Don Dunn.one word.legend

Very useful webinar. I just bought myself a Denon 1910 AVR (7.1). I'm pretty excited to enter the audiophile club. I'm more of an explorer who loves modifying and maximizing things. Hope other audiophiles don't lambast me for appreciating the aesthetics of my vintage stereo Technics Graphics Equalizer which I want to hook up to my AVR. I am aware of potential distortions or interference with the sound quality. How best can I connect both the equalizer and a dual coil 4 ohm 1500 watt subwoofer. Should I downgrade the subwoofer or will my AVR handle the power demand of the sub.

Hey guys, thank you all so much for the amazing content. I can't overstate the appreciation I have of having the likes of AH and ASR to help me navigate what is essentially a minefield! Gene, may I ask, I bought the Yamaha A-S701 because I use an external DAC and felt the 801 was pointless, would you agree with this? Thank you! Also of note Hegal H120 boasts Damping Factor of 2000 vs my Yamaha at 240 :/

Thanks!

I like your ideas to improve testing criteria for the consumer industry. Your discussion touched on one or two things I can HAPPILY no longer claim ignorance! You also touched on 1 or 2 that frustrate me particularly AVRs “it sure looks good on paper“ but on “the highways and byways” of our living rooms & dens their performance is at best disappointing. BTW I’ve always depended upon separate amps for HT. If I was a better off financially, I’d gladly box up and send y’all two Rotel amps: an RB-980BX and an RB-981 to put through their paces PER some of testing criteria y’all discussed. I’d love you to evaluate their specs AND SQ individually. Then compare them citing their strong points over each other. But your busy and the WAF is VERY low on this right now. Thanks regardless and keep pushing forward. Tony

Is there a place for vintage amplifiers? A few years back the Los Angeles Sports Arena was demolished. Before the building came down everything inside was auctioned off. I won thirty Panasonic Ramsa WP-9210 200W amplifiers. These amplifiers were used to power concerts from all the big names throughout the years and tons of sporting events...including the 1984 LA Olympic Games. Today I use three of these 37 year old amplifiers in my humble 5.1.1 theater system. Like a good mechanical time piece or classic car it's kinda cool being to use something long after it's prime 😉.

I object to less than 2 Ohms making a speaker bad. I have heard wonderful speakers with both very high and very low impedance, sometimes even a curve that includes both. Pick the room first, speakers second, then pick a way to drive the speakers that makes the most sense for your given application.

Thank you so much for all you do. Looking forward to the next installment.. I'll keep listening

I have an entry level fifteen year old Integra 5.1 receiver that still works as flawlessly today as it did on day one, and it's on all day long everyday, 'cause it's my TV sound, as well as for CD playing, and if I'm not listening to a CD, then my TV is on. And, I have to agree with you about the sound quality of Onkyo (Integra is their higher end line). I had an equivalent priced Marantz ($500) from the same era, and the Integra was better sounding, with tighter, punchie, and better defined bass and just better balance and clarity overall. And it has a really good DAC too, which sounds better than the one in my Arcam CD player

as always brilliant guys, but the most important metric of everything of an amplifier: Don Dunn Dancing Coefficient How long does it take Don Dunn to start dancing 🙂

I run Infinity Kappa speakers on my Harley. They're rated at 2.7 ohms and I'm running a class D amp delivering 250 watts rms. According to the manufacturer

Noob here. Just getting into the audio space. I have a denon 3700h. Iirc those are good for pre-amps. But where do I go to see what equipment I need and how to set it up. I'd like to pre amp the front speakers.

Are there any updates on Anthony's idea of coming up with an industry standard spec sheet format that would allow consumers to quickly and easily make true apples-to-apples comparisons among amps and receivers? I was just at the 2023 CEDIA show in downtown Denver the other day and didn't hear anything about it there at all yet. However, I absolutley LOVE this idea of uniformity among spec sheet formats and details on measurements. This is something that the industry SHOULD have already standardized on DECADES ago!

Are 2502 Crowns acceptable? Bit more noise in the AP results than good hifi amps, is it noticeable? But concerns me a bit is distortion across the full spectrum: 20 Hz to 20 kHz, to check for possible harshness, as well as tolerance to speaker impedance across the range. XTZ amps based on ICE modules have a reputation for being a bit harsh. True?

Any thoughts on this in forum, as well, thanks again

Gene (guys), I just purchased a pair of SVS Prime Pinnacles and Prime Center. I currently have a Denon X4300H. Should I invest in an amplifier?

regarding class A class A/B Heating issues. i actually removed my central heating radiator from my cinema room as i rely on my amp heating the room up. win / win situation..

I personally believe that the output transistor IS a kind of DNA for the amp, from my experience. Though not as dominant as tubes, still. If one searches, you may find MJL4281 MJ15024 and 2SC5200 are used in some of the best amps. Well the above are all BJTs, which happen to be my favorite ! Just my 2 pennies. Shame no one cares ...

This is a very educational. I would like to learn more in hope for discovering new measurement or specification that may explain differences in what I hear in my amplifiers. For example , despite their similarly flat frequency response measurement, my Class D Purifi Eigentakt sounds more forward in midrange but rolled off treble particularly lacking on the sounds of cymbals. My Krell KSA200s sounds less bright than benchmark AHB2. My benchmark AHB2 on human vocal sounds light weight compare to Levinson 333. My levinson 333 has more weight and dynamic impact when playing classical song like 1812 overture at louder volume setting. All observed under volume settings that produces the same SPL (84dBC) on Sterephile's Test CD2 Track 15 pink noise, and on the same B&W 802D3 speakers..

21:11 Just my two cents. In Spanish, the name of the American currency in plural is _dólares,_ with an accent mark on the first syllable. This is to indicate that it is pronounced with oral stress on that syllable, the first one in the word: DÓ‑la‑res. According to the Spanish accent mark rule, if it was pronounced do‑LA‑res, with stress on the second to last syllable, it would be written without an accent mark: "dolares", which is not how it actually is. If it was pronounced do‑la‑RES, with stress on the last syllable, it would require an accent mark too: "dolarés", which is not how this word is actually written either. So _dólares_ does not really rhymes with _dolores,_ which has its oral stress on the second to last syllable: do‑LO‑res. Furthermore, in Spanish the letter _a_ is always pronounced differently than the _o_ in any circumstance, but that is for another explanation. If you want it, just let me know.

Class D is pulse width modulation of a high frequency square wave, (in the many hundreds of Khz sometimes) passed through a series of low pass L-C filters to end up with an audio into your load. Modulation of supply rails is something else, Class H. This was an excellent talk otherwise but I just felt the description of Class-D was incorrect

Does power factor correction in power supplies matter for sound quality or is just a matter of efficiency?

Very useful info here! Love the engineering minds at work with the unrestricted man cave hours where not a creature is stirring not even a house wife LOL! I have been building my own class AB amps for years and love to look at the various pros and cons of designs. I take so many amps apart and look at what is truly at work. I would truly love to see some accurate double blind listening tests from a host of humans from the “Golden ear” group thru the average listener to see what is truly detectable as an improvement in sound dynamics/quality. Dogs and Cats don’t lie IMHO so when my noise floor is so low & dynamics so high that it freaks them out & plays tricks on their little minds I feel I have improved things LOL. Anal retentive theory versus audible reality which is it? From what I have read our ears have trouble distinguishing anything below 5% distortion so what’s up with these 0.0001 THD numbers? Tube versus solid state is another area that would be a good study on solid double blind listening tests. As long as an amp is functioning correctly not clipping or injecting some abnormal noise and has ample headroom can you really hear a difference between them? As far as amp design goes the circuits themselves are usually able to produce much higher power without problems but are limited to the size of the transformer (power supply) so when all channels are driven each channel is limited by this. It would be nice to see auxiliary plug in power supplies that could be added externally to help boost this area but you have to factor heat dissipation etc into this. Also do you have an opinion on how higher voltage over lower voltage amps sound. Any difference with voltage versus amps(current) on how it effects sound. Tube amps are usually high voltage and many claim they like the tube amp sound better than solid state. It is interesting all the chatter about which cable to use and look inside a high end amplifier only to find #18 gauge wire run inside from the output devices? And if we are going to just follow the electrons shouldn't amplifiers have a minimum of 12 to 14 gauge wire feeding them from the wall?

The video about what to look for sound quality never happened, right? Waiting for the second delivery after this one.

i think that class d modules are doing great now, it is the power supply that is the biggest issue now. especially to keep the efficiency and get that at lower cost. i got a newly released class d amp(nad c 298), at low watt output(a few watts) it is probably 10% efficient. because of a idle power draw about 30 watts. icepower amp modules are twice as efficient with same power power amps wattage. what hurdles needs to be overcome to get great sounding class d amp to have 80% efficient throughout the operating range?

@ 1:02:00 when I contacted rega they didn't want to give me any measurements. Kind of scary, yet they provide a life time warranty on their products

Pioneer Elite 94 receiver, it's a 08 unit, it's a B rated unit , push, pull. 140 watts into 7, iam using as 2 channel, I see ab, d units only. Do they still make B rated receivers, and your thoughts on B rated amps!? Your thoughts on B rated, my Pioneer 94 receiver sounds great, using Elac 2.0 b52 6 ohms. I keep hearing ab rated are better, should I get a ab unit? I think my Pioneer 94 receiver sounds good, your thoughts please. A, B, ab, d, would it be worth getting AB? B seems out dated, yet solid performance, it's heavy, 35-40lbs, thanks for your help! 😁🤘

Class D amps and CLASS AB with class H pwr supplies are the future. Gone are the 100 lb space heaters of yesterday. Give us efficient speakers and amps/DAC's with 135db s/n that run cool to the touch.

I have seen so many surface mount failures on newer equipment than the older thru the hole design. Another area that I see a lot of premature failures is in switching power supplies over the old linear design (Heavy transformer and big caps seem to hold up longer). Amplifiers have really not changed that much for decades in the class A or AB designs so I would like to see them last 40 plus years. Many old vintage amps last this long and are easy to keep running but the surface mount stuff good luck with longevity IMHO. I hope the newer class D amps stay with linear power supplies versus switching power supplies. Some of the more important specs to me are super low noise floor with no hum and having enough headroom to handle all the transient bursts without clipping (big power supply reserves). THD has less meaning too me since most quality amplifiers are so low it just is not audible to my ears but feeding to much negative feedback into the circuit to get these really low numbers may degrade the sound quality. Something to consider on which class amp to buy. There is a significant difference between class AB and D when it comes to supply rejection. It's not about how much noise is injected, it's about the actual gain characteristics of the amplifier. Class AB open loop gain is only weakly dependent on power supply voltage. Class D is strongly dependent on it - and doesn't have anywhere near the loop gain (feedback) of most class AB. The open loop gain ends up varying at a 120 Hz rate, creating inter-modulation distortion products. They call this "power supply pumping"to lead you to believe that it is not "distortion" - but it is. Feedback reduces this, but there is a limit to what it can do because the amount of feedback is less in these class D amps compared to AB. They are inherently more linear open loop so a lot of feedback is not "required". Many class D topologies operate open loop, in which case your supply better be ripple free so a regulated switcher would be recommended which generally will not last as long as the linear power supplies. Going full bridge to a large extent cancels this distortion mechanism so you see a lot of bridge topolgies out there.

I don't think Storm Audio sell that Integrated AV anymore ... This was the info from 2017. The I.ISP 3D.16.12 was first introduced at CES 2017, where it was love at first sight for me. Between its 12 amplified channels and the availability of Dirac Live room correction on all 16 channels, packs a tremendous home theater punch into a single chassis. The twelve class-D amps in are rated to deliver 200 watts per channel with 0.1% THD from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, all channels driven. That's a ton of power and for space-challenged installations this device can replace a whole rack of amps. For this reason, the I.ISP 3D.16.12 is not equipped with preamp outputs for the twelve amplified channels. The remaining four channels do feature balanced XLR outputs.

This is in reference to the comment to hear the difference between amplifiers with hi impedance "8ohm"nominal efficient speakers. I'm currently driving my main speakers (RF-7ii) with my yamaha p3500s pro 2 channel amplifier driven by my yamaha rx-a3080 avr pre outs. I later purchased a more powerful version of my amplifier yamaha p7000s to drive dual sealed subwoofers. Before connecting my subs I was curious and connected it to my main speakers, and after level matching I emediatly heard a huge difference. Rite off the line I perceived far more vocal and upper frequencies coming out of the more powerful p7000s amplifier. Can anyone explain why? Did I miss and or do something wrong?

Most important spec is wattage into low impedance. For people using high sensitivity horns, SNR at low wattage is an important spec.

Is it worth me having a Phase Linear 700B with White Oak Audio Upgrades repaired? It needs repairs done to it…I just inherited it from a friend this week.

So I have a Marantz pm6006 and elac debut 2.0 b6.2 and it sounded great for a week then one day i turned it on and cranked it up and listened to it a little louder than usual and now idk if i messed up the speakers or amp but i could swear it suddenly doesn’t sound as good as it did. Like the bass seems weaker and the sound overall just doesnt seem as powerful. Is something messed up like did i partially burn out the voice coils or burn out something on the amp? No burnt smell coming from the front ports of the speakers just smells like fresh glue like they did when i first pulled them out of the box, and the amplifier just smells like an amplifier it didn’t put out smoke nor did shut off…….i just don’t know wtf is going on. Am i just going crazy? (Already used to the sound?) i find it hard to believe something is fucked up. Like i turned it up to the point where it was sounding maybe a little over driven but for a short period of time i turned it down to where it was no longer sounding “rough”.

Friend, do you like the SMSL newest model SU-8S and SH8S???

I would love to know what the real RMS is. I got a tonewinner AD7300PA. It says it has 300 watts x 7 channels. Is that real RMS? Or just hype? It was only $1,300.00. I have that paired with a onkyo TX RZ920 with klipsch speakers.

Can anyone explain if there is a benefit to going to a separate amp other than higher possible volume and potentially lower distortion? If I am happy with the volume and clarity my AV receiver can produce, is there any point in going to separate amp(s) or is that just wasting money? Thanks.

deciding Hypex amplifier or Ice amplifier

Did this ever get a follow-up (broadcast)?

Specs dont matter more than a true listening test.... 😃 You need to connect it to your AC, your preamp, your speakers , in your room and to your source , than listen with your set of ears.... Specs dont matter unless you do a listening test , specific to you and your environment.

Nothing wrong with Watts as a measurement of Power. I get the Amps issue, however if you don't have the volts to push the amps you won't get the watts. 1000 watt amp limited to 1 amp of current would require a very high output voltage and high impedance speakers. 1000 volts with 1000 ohm speakers 😁

I've got good speakers, with an old cheap amp. I've noticed that when I turn it up, it seams to sound good, but at low volumes, I loose more bass then the volume would suggest. Is that more of a speaker problem, an amp problem, or pretty normal?

For me the #1 reason to not use a receiver in a HT. The amplifier technology changes much slower than the sound/video processing section. You can use amplifiers from 30 -40 years ago and get good results, but if you want HDMI 2.0 or Atmos you need something new. So why keep throwing out perfectly good amps because the receiver doesn't support Atmos, 8K video or whatever the next need to have thing is? A general note While this video contains lots of good information, not much seems actionable. I would like to use specs to weed out products and then listen to a few products in a price range I want to afford. However most everything you say in the video shows that this is impossible based on the current state of specs.

talking about class D, i find it funny when ppl 'hand weight' amps and then draw power related conclusions. we see that a lot on youtube along w/ the 'they don't make them like they used to' :) i always want to say we've been using CPUs and GPUs that easily suck half a kilowatt in an instant and the power supplies were never heavy. we had 1kW power supplies decades ago that weighted nothing (compared to a big 50yrs old receiver)

Now I want a power soft amp lol

Which powershoft amp?

Can someone just tell me straight up if buying an XLS1002 2-Channel 350W Power Amplifier for Jamo S 809 floor speakers will be an improvement in sound quality?

I was wondering how Anthony maintained such a trim face and then he stuffed a chocolate in it. Now I'm really baffled.

I'm looking for a 2 Channel 100 watt 8 ohms that will pick up XM Radio 100 a channel

The question about all amps sounding the same, I find it weird to think that a Mcintosh would sound the same as a Rotel

Im getting into adding amp to my AVR whats a good reasonable price and brand for one

Crown D150A Crown Macro Tech 600 1200 Damping Factor 1000.005 distortion Crown K2ClassD 480watts per side 3000 Damping Factor

So why is there so many tube amplifiers that on offer 10-25 watts per channel it seems like nothing?

49:45

Timestamps ?

lol that wiggles shirt

Watched the entire video and barely understood a thing. Can either of you give me your top 5 amp/power amplifier for jbl L112’s?

If ya gonna sell that vinyl snake oil bring out those big beautiful tubes!

I like hegel

Bringing up computer power supplies is a bad comparison. They are not all created the same. Some may say 1100 watts and be split into very small current rails that aren't enough for power hungry GPU units, even utilizing two of the rails with two connectors. They could be as small as 15 amps each. Comparatively, you can have another 750 watt unit with a nice 62 amp rail just for the GPU. They are very different.

the only thing that matters is $100k speaker cables how else can you get that amazing soundstage LOL

Now I know why I hated plantronics and loved onkyo…. Thanks

The only specs that I care about is cost, I just use my ears, if I like the sound of it or not.

Save the planet,get a 👑🤔😏

It must be nice to be wealthy enough to think an $800 component is "entry level"

speaker load is complex load , phase changing all time , Resistor test over BW is wrong way to measurement

None really. In the beginning of the seventies when solid-state start ruling the amplifier market all manufacturers boasted their products with near perfect specs (McIntosh especially and later all Japanese gear) but those amps are long forgotten now. American brands like Audio Research, Mark Levinson, Threshold, Krell, Spectral Audio and Jeff Rowland captured the minds and hearts of the people not those perfect spec amps. Even the Japanese themselves still treasure their Levinson ML-2's and Threshold SA/1's.

I listen to class D , they are not phase accurate , no 3D or sound stage at all !

Andrew Robinson disliked this video :)

What specs really matter? NOT Sony lol

Grimani needs a history lesson. Nobody told Columbus he would fall off the world. He didn't leave Italy, he left Spain. He was told he would starve long before he got to India, because they knew the circumference of the world almost exact. He confused Arabian meters with Italian meters and believed the circumference of the earth was smaller than it is. Columbus was a great navigator, who was an expert at navigating the winds. How he got back by using the trade winds demonstrated his skill. However claiming he was right in those meetings, is false, he was wrong, the King's advisers who were very educated were right, if there had not been land in between Europe and Asia, he never would have survived. Anyone telling you that people thought the world was flat or other such nonsense, is a liar or they have been conned by liars. Those lies started coming out hundreds of years after Columbus sailed. If you want an accurate history of Columbus, the best source is Samuel Eliot Morison's Admiral of the Ocean Sea, The Life of Christopher Columbus.

BSEE , HAHAH , that explain why it sounds like SH*T

Plug wires in speaker output then turn it up and put other end on tongue. That will give idea of power. Blah blah blah

WHEN IT COMES TO AMPLIFIERS AND AVR IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO LIKE YOU DO WITH EVERYTHING ELSE AUDIO IS GO AUDITION THEM IN A PLACE SOMEWHERE WHERE THEY ARE DISPLAYED. BRING YOUR FAVORITE MUSIC WITH YOU AND PLAY IT INSIDE THE PLACE WHERE YOU'RE GOING TO AUDITION THEM THEY WILL ALLOW YOU TO DO THAT. TAKE YOUR TIME BE PATIENT AND PICK THE AMPLIFIER THAT SOUNDS BEST TO YOUR EARS AND MAYBE TO THE FUEL AROUND YOU NOT THE SALESPERSON NOT THE MANUFACTURER NOT THE SPECS IF IT SOUNDS GREAT TO YOU IT'S GREAT FOR YOU.. IT'S JUST ALMOST THAT SIMPLE. AND SPEND AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE BOTTOM DOLLAR NEGOTIATE..