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Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

Re: What Constitues A "Properly Designed" Amp?

Peter Aczel has laid out some good design criteria. Your hypothesis is closer to the mark. I believe that we can hear some things under the right conditions that are beneath the noise floor, in much the same way that we can hear a flute even with a bass drum that's putting out vastly more acoustic power. Noise has no pattern, flutes do, and we naturally pick out pattern.

As to matching an SET with a push pull amp of any variety, I think you'd have to have a an ancillary circuit to match the distorion pattern of the SET. SETs create not just more total harmonic distortion, but different ratios of the various harmonics, than do push-pull amps.

But I think that the argument that your inquiry begs is the old adage that amps should be "straight wires with gain," that is, the output should look exactly like the input but bigger. No coloration, no warmth, no this, that, or the other thing, just gain. That's a concept I agree with. Jeffrey Behr, an audiphile whose sense and ears I respect, disagrees; he believes (I think) is achieving a pleasing sound. The difference in aim may be the difference between an analtic approach and an artistic one, where neither is right or wrong.


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