Yamaha Stereo amplifier - Analogue vs Digital

amit11

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Hi Friends,

Have some confusion on 2 stereo amplifiers. (Analogue vs digital stereo amplifiers)

During auditoning, I observed the following on these stereo amplifiers:

Yamaha R-S201
----------------

--> Has buttons instead of knobs for tone control (bass treble). Hence seems to be "Digitally" controlled.
--> Has knob for colume control which rotates freely without any physical stop on left and right. Hence seems to be "digitally" controlled.

Yamaha A-S500
---------------
--> Has knobs for both volume control and tone control. Hence "Analogue"


a) Does it mean that R-S201 is a digital amplifier i.e. Class-D amplifier?
b) OR, the amplification is analogue but the volume and tone controls only are digital?
c) I have heard that "Analogue" is always better than "Digital" in terms of fidelity. In that case can we conclude that A-S500 (analogue) would be better than R-S201 (digitally controlled)

Any ideas/pointers would be helpful. Thanks.

Regards,
Amit Mittal.
 
Hi Amit,

I am not competent enough to confirm on amplifier class part but one thing i would like to share.

Yamaha has A-S and R-S series

A-S is pure amplifier and R-S is amplifier with Radio

For each series, there is A-S and R-S, eg:A-S500 with radio would become R-S500.

Considering this logic, R-S201 is two steps down below A-S500 with respect to grade of amplifier. I have seen R-S300 in indian market. I tried a lot for R-S500 before going for A-S500.

If you find good use for Radio, i would suggest R-S201, if you think amplifier and power is the priority, then A-S500 is better. I own A-S500 and i can vouch for its build and quality of sound.

Regards,
Antony
 
Hi Amit,

Sorry, your understanding is completely wrong. Digital or analog knobs have nothing to do with the amp being digital or analog. Digital does not mean class d. Analog is not better than digital. Both the amps you mentioned are analog amps. There is actually nothing called digital amp.

The closest that an amp comes to being a digital amp is the NAD D3020. This amp sounds significantly better than most other analog amps in its price range.

You should pick the amp the sounds best to your ears. Please forget everything else. And please don't get misled by sales people. They know nothing about all this usually and make up stuff to sound intelligible. Decent HiFi shops though will do a better job of explaining the underlying technology, specifications, build quality, trade off etc. Or websites and magazines can teach you. But please note that literally every statement you made earlier is incorrect.

Regards
Arun
 
going by the user interface yes you would call buttons digital and knobs analog
analog being more durable iin the long run like the old school build quality
its not like the digital won't be good but analog is better

why go for yamaha btw

marantz & denon are into music systems business before any other brands
give them a listen too and find the difference in quality

yamaha & onkyo do better 5.1 though
 
Hi Amit,

Both the amps you mentioned are analog amps. There is actually nothing called digital amp.

Hi asliarun,

Agree that both amplifiers could be analog. (i.e. class a/b)
However I have some confusion on the volume and tone control.

In the R-201 -> it has buttons meaning that volume is "digitally" controlled
In the S-500 -> it has knob, meaning that volume is "analogue" controlled

If the above is true, then I have also heard that "Digitally" controlled volume introduces some distortion / compression etc compared to "analogue". Any thoughts on this?

Regards,
Amit Mittal.
 
Thanks Antony.
Which speakers do you use in combination with your Yamaha A-S500?
Also, have you used ipod with the amplifier, using the optional ipod dock of Yamaha?

Regards,
Amit Mittal.
 
My CDP has up and down volume buttons but the preamp section is analog. Up/down or left/right buttons are same as stepped attentuators in the sense they provide discrete steps of volume control. But they can very well be implemented in the analog domain.

Digital volume control "throws away" resolution. So if you listen to, say 16 bit 44.1 kHz CDs at full digital volume, you are passing the full 16 bits. At anything less than full volume, the bit depth is <16. So if you are playing from (say) foobar, you must set the computer's master volume control at full and also foobar's volume control at full, and actual volume control must be done at preamp stage.
 
Hi asliarun,

Agree that both amplifiers could be analog. (i.e. class a/b)
However I have some confusion on the volume and tone control.

In the R-201 -> it has buttons meaning that volume is "digitally" controlled
In the S-500 -> it has knob, meaning that volume is "analogue" controlled

If the above is true, then I have also heard that "Digitally" controlled volume introduces some distortion / compression etc compared to "analogue". Any thoughts on this?

Regards,
Amit Mittal.

Hi Amit,

You're asking a good question! And the answer is a lot more complicated - as jls also mentioned. By the way, even for digital volume controls, if the DAC is oversampling to say 24 bits, the issue about "dropping bits" becomes a non-issue. In other words, even if you keep dropping bits to reduce volume, since you start off from a much higher number (24 bits), you will still land up close to 16 bits at very low volumes.

Here's my two cents - At the price range you are looking at, other things like overall build quality, amp design, quality of components and toroid transformer, etc. matter a great deal more than some of these specific features.

Read a few stereophile amplifier reviews. The last two pages of the reviews will usually talk about technical specifications and measurements, and what specifications are important (and what those values should be for a good or decent amplifier). Then analyze your future amp and look at those specifications.

In other words, noise etc. can be introduced due to N number of factors. Specifications will tell you the final noise level anyway, so don't bother about specific amp features, look at the overall numbers instead. And of course, combine it with actual listening.

Of course, the first warning sign about an amp would be when the model doesn't even have detailed specifications to begin with!
 
If the above is true, then I have also heard that "Digitally" controlled volume introduces some distortion / compression etc compared to "analogue". Any thoughts on this?

Regards,
Amit Mittal.

The volume controls in a digitally controlled amp is usually some sort of stepped attenuation or ladder circuit - the possibility of distortion/compression might happen due to non linearity in the CMOS switches or something like that
There is no digital conversion happening. The volume control itself is very much an analog circuit.
Another possibility is that resistors on the IC may not be made to a high degree of precision, so there might be very small channel tracking error - (1-2dB) usually analog pots have worse 2-3dB for an alps pot)
 
hi greenhorn,

So is this understanding correct?

a. Even thought the volume is controlled by buttons, the volume control is still in the analogue domain. The only benefit (and a good benefit ofcourse) is we get "discrete steps" for volume.


b) there is no DAC nor ADC concept / chip involved here and hence there is no concept of bit loss / 16 to 24 bit upscale and then reducing the volume and bit etc.


c) in terms of fidelity, analogue volume and the stepped volume control provide similar fidelity.

Regards,
Amit mittal.
 
hi greenhorn,

So is this understanding correct?

a. Even thought the volume is controlled by buttons, the volume control is still in the analogue domain. The only benefit (and a good benefit ofcourse) is we get "discrete steps" for volume.


b) there is no DAC nor ADC concept / chip involved here and hence there is no concept of bit loss / 16 to 24 bit upscale and then reducing the volume and bit etc.


c) in terms of fidelity, analogue volume and the stepped volume control provide similar fidelity.

Regards,
Amit mittal.

A&B - correct. C - similar is the word, though purists might argue that the signal passes through a bunch of extra transistors compared to a rotary pot, and might add some amount of noise, distortion, and possibly remove a bit of the signal (apart from the intended attenuation)
 
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