Most transparent amps under 10k??

I'm doing a bit of research regarding passive and active systems and would need a few suggestions about top amplification. I would like to hear if the best amps in passive configurations can achieve what active systems can in terms of transparency.
Thanks

 

What do you consider best? To me a 'best' amp is one with low distortion products and there are many of those about for under £10K

 

Quite frankly, around £500 on a NAD amp gets you all the transparency and probably all the clean power required. Push the budget if more power and facilities such as digital inputs are required.
Transparency is a function of the specification and we've had top spec amps for reasonable money for many years.
If you want amps for active, the same applies and anything from NAD, Arcam, Cyrus, Cambridge to name just a few would work very well.

 

Well I do not agree with your opinion. NAD does not give you much transparency. In fact NAD is not any better than a Philips or similar budget separates system in my opinion. I have owned NAD 314 unfortunatelly, many years ago and it was crap.
I'm not buying an amp I would just like to know if somebody has heard something extremely transparent. I was told Bryston preamps are very transparent but haven't tried one out yet.

@tenson I should have written most transparent, not best

 

I owned a NAD C370 for a while and it was very good. I sometimes regret selling it.

How do you determine the transparency of an amp?

 

You do a 'null test' that subtracts input signal from output. What you have remaining is the distortion. You could then quantize it in some way to give a nice number, or even just listen to it and find the one with he least objectionable sound. Quad used to do this.

 

.... and the amp spec (preferably verified) can tell most of the story.

 

Not in my experience - 'transparency is a function of the specification', I could hardly disagree more.

 

You need to add a little more than that So what is transparency? Surely it is the opposite of distortion.

 

It is not, it is just that specifications are usually not very detailed, every company has their own reporting standard.... Specs do not help you much.
Not to mention different topologies, use of global negative feedback etc.

 

In which case the only way you are going to find out is to shortlist a few of interest and listen to them at home, in context. It's exactly what I'd do if planning to make such an investment.

Specs and measurements are a necessary but not sufficient condition IMO - most obviously because they are rarely directly comparable. Claimed specs are not the same as measured performance, and anyone can claim fabulous figures if the bandwidth is sufficiently uncritical (or manipulated*). But if the whole 'package' / experience' doesn't make me smile I'm not buying it.



*OT, but one good example being certain Class D amps that apparantly measure as having very low THD in the treble - until you read the fine print and find they are being measured with a 6th order low-pass filter at 20khz. ... it makes the numbers absolutely not comparable to anything measured without such a filter (i.e. almost all other solid-state or valve amps). Sterephile does this because one such Class-D manufacturer recommended it to them, I wonder why!

 

As it happens, I heard a Meridian active system this weekend, which I don't think was as transparent as what I use at home.

Just to be controversial, I believe that a good deal of the transparency in my system comes from good mains control. I use fully balanced connections between my source and power amp, linear PSU on my digital source, fooey mains cables and a trichord PSU on my DAC.
IMO, all that together has resulted in a lowering of "grunge", which has helped transparency.
Now someone is probably going to tell me that I'm imagining it, but if so, it's a lovely imagination.

 

In my experience, the perception of transparency has a lot to do with the way the upper mid/low treble is handled. I have also found that this is a delicate quality that is easily lost and that the specific choice of same value components (capacitors in particular) within an amplification circuit can make quite a profound difference.

Whilst it may well be possible to measure the changes in these circuits, it is also true that the kind of specification provided by most (if not all) amplifier manufacturers does not attempt to cover such subtleties.

I realise that it is the party line here that all amplification sounds the same but, honestly, I find this entirely contrary to my 30+ years of actually listening to amplifiers - many of which sound quite different (even level matched and played into easy load speakers). Honestly chaps, you seem to have very low expectations of your amplification which, inevitably, are easily achieved.

 

Entirely agree with that!

 

Robert is turning into a Shaw-clone: if you are a speaker designer, all amps tend to sound the same becaue you can change the sound so much just by changing the speaker.

Personally, I don't agree with Robert's views. Some amps which have fine on-paper form make me stop listening to music, others, which may have slightly worse measurements, encourage me to. I can't tell from the paper spec which camp an amp will fall into, so like Mark and Martin, I need to listen to them in the context of my system.

 

perspective, perspective, perspective

Ok, a few comments in response to the above.

- The party line here is not that all amps sound the same. I'll say that again - we do not believe that all amps sound the same.

We do believe that most SS amplifiers on the market perform sufficiently well that differences are trivial at best. Martin's point about Class D makes the case well for a good exception, as are many of the tube amplifiers out there.

- On transparency, a good basic specification should ensure transparency becasue the distortions produced by the amplification and either below audibility or an order of magnitude below those generated by moving coil loudspeakers.
That is why I've said that £500 on a NAD integrated gets all the transparency required. Perversely, certain distortions can subjectively enhance transparency but this is most definitely not the same thing as real transparency as in 'what goes in comes out'.

- Markus, I have a lot of time for Mr Shaw. I would certainly agree that swapping amps is not the best way to change the sound. But then I'd also say that if someone has a good loudspeaker and wants to change the sound, they should look at room acoustics and EQ in the first instance. No idea if Alan agrees
I also don't automatically advocate that listeners use what I would regard as the perfect amplifier. If someone wants to run a valve amp with 4 Ohm output impedance and a good spray of harmonic distortion I wouldn't advise them to replace it if they like the sound produced into their loudspeakers. However, I would invite them so understand what is going on.

- On specs in general and Martin's point, you'll notice I always qualify with 'preferably verified' when looking at specs. Lots of crap out there for sure and always best to have a good bench test, however some manufacturers are reliable and will genuinely quote worst case specs along with 'typical'.

 

Rob,
Can I put a question to yourself at this stage.
I've heard your own system twice when you had H2s. As I remember, both times it included your WAD6550 power amp, with a WAD pre-amp.
The key differences being that I believe you'd completed quite number of upgrades to the pre-amp in between my two visits.
Certainly, I remember that the first time the system was on some material awe-inspiring, but in other ways, could rip your ears off. Second time around, it was so sublime that I ended up buying a similar pair of speakers.

Assuming that the source and speakers were very similar, do you believe that your upgrades were worthless? They certainly didn't sound so to myself.

 

Hi Mike,

Yes the upgrades to the pre - essentially 'better' caps and other passive components - were worthless. Shortly afterwards, I spent a considerable sum on upgrading the WAD power amp with Audio Note caps, and that also left the sound unchanged as i reported at the time.

So why might the system sound different?
Well aural memory is extremely poor, a gap of minutes let alone days and weeks is enough to make a comparison extremely unreliable.
Then there is mood, chosen music and listening position.
Just moving position a few inches will alter the response at various points from the H2 (and any other speaker) by several dB. That's why for reliable testing you need to perform quick A/B sessions with many repetitions.

Comparing components where there is a considerable time gap (>days) is only of use where differences are gross. So if a speaker has a nasty resonance, a particularly uneven response, or a distortion problem you'll likely remember it reliably.

 

I must admit I don't strictly think specs, (i.e. a power rating and THD+N %) are enough to tell if an amp will have audible distortion. A basic and sensible set of measurements will though, such as done by Stereophile.

I have found a handful of cases where kit with reasonable spec sounds slightly different to others. In all cases I've found the answer in more detailed measurements.

The most obvious example for me being the Behringer kit that I do modifications for. I guess I can hear the improvements (A/B test) because it is mainly in IMD which covers a very wide bandwidth, unlike THD, and might have higher-order products than most moving coil speakers. This would take the distortion outside of the masking area just enough to hear it. This is quite an uncommon situation though, and in most cases I have to say a decent THD+N spec will tell you if distortion is below audibility.

 

An amp that sounds transparent on one speaker may not on another.
Amplifier/speaker synergy is far more important than anything else.

It tried around twelve power amps on one of my pairs of speakers before I found one that sounded transparent.
All the rest imposed their own sound on those particular speakers but on other speakers sounded fine.

You can talk all you like about low distortion and linear response but these measurements mean nothing unless they are in to a real speaker load.Amplifier frequency response tends to change substantially with different speaker loads.This is especially true of valve amplifiers but also applies to SS and Class D amps.