"I'm a firm believer that there is very little significant audible difference between most solid state power amps - assuming..." Jeff Mackwood

Jeff had better change his attitude or else he will never make it as a high-end audio equipment reviewer. You are supposed to hear "minor but important" differences, focusing on "subtle but musically significant contrasts in" whatever, using terms like muicality, bloom, air, and tuneful with surgical precision and creative flair.

Seriously, my experiences with solid state amps tend to agree with Jeff. Once, many, many years ago, I was in a high-end audio store in Berkely, Ca. listening to some equipment vastly more expensive than I could afford at the time, or maybe even now. I asked to hear two diffent solid state amps played through a pair of Magneplanar speakers. The only difference I heard was that one seemed to be very, very slightly boosting the highs over the lows IN CONTRAST TO THE OTHER AMP. In no way did either one sound bad, just slightly different. This could easily be explained by one amp have a lower output impedance than the other at higher frequencies or some other easily explained engineering phenomenon.

One time I did a comparison between a solid state amp and an old tube amp. Neither amp was close to state of the art for its type(or even mid-fi), but the tube amp sounded much more 3-dimensional and lifelike in the midrange.

And this was all prior to speaker cable, interconnects and power cords costing several hundred dollars to thousands each. How could be hear anything in those early days?

I guess I can't fake it good enough to be an audio high end equipment reviewer; or at least do so and keep a straight face.

Paul

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the 1derful1