Questions:
1. Is yesterday's high end comparable to today's mid range in terms of technology? e.g. A Sansui 717 would be comparable to which amps today?
2. I have heard the term "they don't make em like they used to" in all spheres of life...but is it actually true for amplifiers and if yes then in which
aspects?
3. What are "Real" technical advancements that has happened in solid state amplifiers over the last 30 years?
4. in terms of pure reliability how long is any decently built amplifier is meant to last before it starts giving problems? and is this scenario different in
newer amps vs vintage ones?
5......vintage amps are bit superior in Midrange,which i love a lot and latest amps are details in top to bottom.
6.... "warm" DACs
7.....more prominence is given for the HF range than for mids and LF in my opinion
8.....Lots of progress in the last 30 years?
9.....not even considering valves for anything
10....amplifiers designed for 'digital audio'....
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View point!
1. Today's circuitry is built on yesterdays designs ! Most circuit configuration blocks were designed a long time ago. Maybe in the 40's and 50's ! Today's designers often put together these blocks to try and achieve a better overall performance. Not all succeed !
Semiconductor technology has advanced to a point where we have better parts today than were fabricated long ago. Many old circuits sound great when built with today's parts. Sometimes you do need to take care of issues due to the very wideband performance of new parts. Comparing amps by measured performance doesn't tell you what they sound like. You cannot mention amp model numbers unless you have the physical units to compare them by. Remember paper specs can often mean nothing much with regard to sound quality.So you cannot say "tell me which modern amp sounds like the old XYZ-1000 amp". You will need to listen to hundreds of amps which is impossible .Unless someone accidentally has come across a similar sounding one and HAS done a comparison. You can never decide on the sound of a single component against another in different systems and different surroundings.You always need a side by side A/B comparison.
2. They don't make amps like they used to !
Yes, the casings were made with much thicker material and usually out of steel sheets that weighed a lot. The weight alone gave it the feeling of being built like a tank. But that doesn't ensure good sound quality except that cabinet vibration is much lower and parts that are sensitive to that will benefit with beefier casings. Transformers were also beefier. Today they try to make the transformers as small as possible as copper and core material is very expensive and the target is always to reduce manufacturing costs. Good modern amps use properly rated transformers and are quite large and heavy AND quite expensive. They are better than vintage transformers !Now we also have better and bigger ( affordable ) power supply capacitors. So a well designed power supply today is better than a vintage one.
Some old "audio transformers" used in tube amps are considered better than most "audio transformers" manufactured today. That is possibly not completely true. Here the issue is regarding the winding structure which can be quite complex and manufacturers do not divulge how they wind their transformers.It's a trade 'secret' ! But many schemes are there on the Net for anyone to try. Power transformers however are very straightforward and much easier to make.
3. First of all semiconductors and passive parts are vastly superior today.They are also more affordable. Newer semiconductor devices have appeared that make some designs much easier to implement and work better. Some are MOSFET's, LATFET's, IGBT's , faster power diodes etc. So you have a whole range of newer implementations in amplifiers. Very low distortion is fairly easy to achieve as is making very high power amplifiers. Now with classD efficiencies are also higher. ClassD as you all know isn't a digital amp ! Very simply put, it's a power controller with a low pass filter ! It's not an amplifier in the traditional sense.
Then you have class G and class H which could only be implemented with modern components, etc. But it might be interesting to know that many vintage circuits built with modern components can sound absolutely wonderful.
4. Reliability depends on the basic circuit and the components themselves. Modern components from good manufacturers ( even good Chinese parts !) will last longer than vintage parts ! Mainly because modern raw materials are far superior and manufacturing techniques are also highly advanced. When designing they have to ensure that all electrical ratings should be well withing maximum limits and not reached or crossed under any circumstance ( like mains over voltage etc. ).
The other killer is dust and humidity AND now, the polluted air that leaves sticky deposits and fluff on circuit boards if the amps have open vents. These collect humidity during humid days and can cause leakage paths or even shorts thus electrically damaging the amp. Proper heat sinking and ventilation is also important. Many equipment designers skimp on heat sinking to reduce cost of manufacture. So when played at their limits ,everything gets hotter than it should and that kills it's life span. Heat kills ! So basically, good design methods will ensure that modern equipment will last longer than vintage ones. This requirement leaves out a vast majority of equipment we buy today !
5. This can't be generally true . There are a lot of modern amps that are , what we would call 'transparent'. They don't alter anything within the bandwidth. Superior mid range could only describe an amp with low levels of distortion AND it's distortion spectra. The ear is very sensitive to midrange and so any distortions that alter the 'sound of the midrange' will be immediately noticed. Good tube amps ( probably not all !) have a monotonically decreasing distortion spectra . Even order harmonics generally don't sound bad to the ear and higher levels of second harmonic sounds 'warm' to the ear !Some attribute a plus point to this 'warm' sound .....while it's only high second order harmonic distortion ! For this to work the higher order harmonics should be significantly lower than the second harmonic distortion.
In solid state amps you can alter the operating conditions and stage design to change the balance of the distortion spectra to achieve what you want ( within limits). Solid state amps generate odd order harmonics due to the operating characteristics of the device itself. But due to the very high gain you can achieve in ss circuits ,they use negative feedback to drop the distortion to low levels. This works well when designed properly.
"Good HF" in newer amps could be due to very wide bandwidth and even sometimes due to higher levels of high order harmonic distortion ! Makes it sound sharper. A general observation is that if it sounds bright but tiring to the ear it most likely has high higher order harmonics !
6. There can be no such thing as a warm DAC if 'DAC' means just the chip that decodes digital signals to analog. It's the following analog circuit that most often affects how the overall circuit sounds to the ear. But as I mentioned HF artifacts can significantly affect the 'sound' of a piece of equipment. The digital artifacts vary with design and also the type of dac like multibit or single bit dac's.
7. Prominence of any part of the bandwidth is not intentional and in a good design should not be there. Remember that an amp with 'flat' frequency response with a resistor as load ( as most measurements are made ) will no longer be 'flat' with a real world speaker connected to it. How bad it is depends on several factors especially the amps output impedance and the speaker impedance over the whole bandwidth which is never flat for most loudspeakers. Hence it could sound substantially different in different systems !
8. Yes there has been lots of progress in the last 30 years. Better components and better understanding of how everything works and affects the sound. That being said, there is room for a lot more to learn....A LOT MORE !
9. Not all valve amps are the same. There are good ones, average ones and bad ones.I have heard tube amps in the late 60's that were really good. I have a Scott tube amp from the 60's and it isn't as good as my ss amp ! But I have other tube amps that are VERY good. Made in this age with ( modern) new parts but vintage circuitry. In any case there aren't too many variations in tube circuitry ! SS amps last longer than tube amps because tube power amps need a change in power tubes every few thousand hours as they loose their amplifying capability with time. This is with " hours of playing time " and not just 'time' as in " from say year 2000 to 2010" !
10.There is no such thing as amps designed for 'digital audio', That is only a misleading marketing blurb. Audio is always analog and will continue to be so
till our ears transform to something else !
Digital audio is ' audio recorded and processed in the digital domain '. Does that make it better ? Yes and no. Converting audio to a digital stream helps to retain the original signal intact . But as usual it always depends on the performance of the digital parts and the processing routines (if you manipulate it ). So you can have two different systems with digital input and the usual analog output , that sound different. Without processing the digital
signal it does not do anything to the bandwidth of the signal. So treble can't get brighter or mid range get increased or decreased or bass become more or
less. If there are such issues, it will usually belong to the analog sections of the circuit.
On tube amps generally sounding different from ss amps:
Many old tube amps have high output impedance ( maybe in ohms like 0.5 to 2 ohms or more). This is responsible for the sound to be different compared to a solid state amp because it alters the frequency response ( from an ideal flat response) at the speaker terminals and hence the 'sound you hear' . And that is because the speaker impedance is not flat and varies over it's useable bandwidth. A few speakers ( like planar magnetic types etc. ) are fairly uniform and so don't suffer much from this problem. Plus tube amps generally have a different distortion spectra and if they have low negative feedback ( or none at all ) they could sound 'warm' due to the higher levels of second harmonic distortion.
Bottom line: If you like what you hear, that's best for you. No two ears are identical in performance. So you REALLY do not know what the other person hears except for simplistic things like more or less bass, midrange or treble.....AND if they like it or not. The 'texture' of the sound that another person hears can't be determined accurately. So trust what your ear tells you ! So if you can't hear the difference between a $10,000/- amp and a $50 amp , it's great. You can now buy the $50 amp and spend the money you saved on music ! That's the best place to be!
If you can hear some difference but not worth the money , then buy the $50 amp. It's all here just for the music . If you REALLY love music, buy the cheaper amp that sounds 'good enough' and buy tons of music !
I watched some old music video recordings from Youtube last night. Poor video but great music with dated recording quality. But it was MOST enjoyable and I was least upset about the low video and audio quality. Just tells you that if your ear likes it then enjoy it ! This doesn't mean that say, something like a 'Koji Kitaro' concert would sound OK with poor sound and picture . No, it would not do ! But for oldies, we can't change anything so 'just enjoy it !'. After a few minutes you wouldn't miss anything !
Cheers.
Took me a long time writing this blurb. Hope it answers some questions.
