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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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Critic's Corner Discuss a review. Provide constructive feedback. Talk to the industry. |
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In Reply to: RE: That's ridiculous! posted by Gag Halfrunt on July 3, 2012 at 16:05:52:
That's not entirely the case and why people need to read their results and commentary carefully. The Sugden is a SET and always wins their tests. It's SS SET but SET nevertheless.
The Audio Note OTO SE was given 4 stars and recommended but did not win their test. However they also said it "easily sounded the best" out of the amplifier shootout amps. It lost marks purely for power restrictions and lack of features. I don't have a problem with this since Audio Note across the board is a bit idiosyncratic. One reason they like a complete system match because much of their gear doesn't play well with others like SS.
If you create a brute force amplifier with high power handling then you can be sure it will drive every speaker you bring to your home. I find that to be a sledge hammer approach to things because many speakers wind up sounding thin and brittle or "overly controlled."
I think you noted the problem with Blind Tests is duration. Short listening session my ear often gravitates to the brighter leaner and high "impact" bass systems. Which is no doubt why so many makers make systems that sound like this. It's initially impressive and when 95% of people spend less than 30 minutes listening to stuff - you have to show be "impressive" in a short session because your speaker is sitting beside 4 other brands like puppies at the pound whichever puppy can suck up the most with the saddest eyes will win the purchase.
One of the biggest dealers in Canada - hugely knowledgeable and can repair every brand sells everything from SET/Vinyl to Meridian Soolos and their active speakers to H/T flagship receiver to big SS. They note that 90%+ of the people walk in with what they want to purchase based on reading magazine adverts/reviews. They listen to the one thing they read about and say "good" and buy it.
Vinyl/CD is irrelevant as a debate since if it was about music you'd own both since so much great music is only on vinyl and or only sounds good on vinyl. Ditto however for CD where there is a ton of excellent music on CD and not available on vinyl especially since 2000. And some remasters are excellent. Vinyl also costs more to get right IMO.
Tubes/SS is more debatable in terms that they don't play it back. Still, judging by the best rooms I've heard as audio shows, dealers, and overall systems - there does seem to be a very big correlation in the sheet numbers of the very best rooms and very best loudspeakers tend to have some sort of tube amplifier connected up - these speaker makers are choosing tube amplifiers and even not so easy to drive speakers like Dynaudio came with Octave tube gear.
Tube amps have come along way since those ST70s. I recently heard an ST 70 and frankly it's comically bad against current tube amplfiers. I also purchased a Rotel RC 1082 preamp over a second hand ARC SP series tube preamp - the Rotel destroyed it IMO.
I don't think you can just say SS is better or tubes is better. It's simply not true in every case. I find SS is better at the lower end of the price spectrum. Tubes seem to win at the upper end of the spectrum - and with most easy to drive speakers I can find some excellent tube amplifiers where I find it more difficult with SS. Tube amps come in many more subtle sonic flavours. SS tends to be different versions of white. Cream, Eggshell, etc. Tubes also come in all those whites, but also have light pink, baby blue, chocolate etc.
That is why those folks who said "add a resister in the chain and it will sound like a tube" are dimwits. For that to hold even remotely logical sense would mean that all tube amps sound alike - they don't. Tube amps have far wider sonic landscapes - that could be viewed as a lack of accuracy in the sense that if they sound so much different than eachother then they must veer from accuracy. SS sounds similar and therefore must be inherently more accurate.
The logic doesn't work however because it assumes that democracy is accurate. It assumes that because 80 amplifiers sound more or less the same and uses similar technology that that sameness must be truth. While the "other" technology (tubes) because they sound so much different from each other must "all" be inaccurate. Err no it may just be the outliers than are inaccurate. Besides that everything is inaccurate and is largely a subjective perception. One person's analytical bright irritating unblistenable treble is another person's "accurate" treble reproduction.
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Follow Ups
- RE: That's ridiculous! - RGA 20:00:01 07/04/12 (1)
- RE: That's ridiculous! - the old school 22:46:22 07/07/12 (0)
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