Can YOU hear differences between amps, sources, etc?

[OldSkoolRS]

Short version:

I can't seem to hear differences in amplifiers, or using different players/connections, only changes in speakers/eq. Is anyone else the same as me?


Long version:

I'm mainly into AV and have a fairly decent, if now 7 year old system in a treated room. I recently decided that I'd treat myself to a separate hifi amp for CD/LP listening which could also be integrated into my AV system as a power amp for my L/R speakers.

Luckily I know a dealer who does home loans, so he dropped off a unit mid December for me to try until the new Year. I set it all up and did some serious back to back listening of my favourite CDs. This amp uses a room correction so I did a number of calibrations, with different settings and crossovers (I need bass management as my LCR speakers are large, but still satellite speakers).

Bottom line was I took it back to the shop and didn't buy: I couldn't hear the difference between my AVR playing CDs and this £2k stereo amp, through the same speakers/cables. Especially when I ran without any room eq from the AVR/stereo amp and only my subs are corrected. There were differences when using the amp's room eq, verses Dirac in my AVR, but it's the basic 'amp sound' I'm referring to.

I'm a gigging musician, so I consider I have good ears for music, but I just don't get the same results as all those people who say that a stereo amp will sound 'better' than an AVR for music. After this last month of exhaustive testing/comparison I just had to admit that I couldn't hear a difference and it would simply have been 'Emperor's new clothes' if I had bought it regardless.

I also did some comparisons of using HDMI vs optical output on my disc player(s); a budget Sony X800 4K player and a more upmarket, but still not CD only Oppo BDP93. I found nothing conclusive here either. I just ended up setting it up to use optical on the 'CD' input of my AVR so I could set it to be 'fixed' in Stereo mode, since I hate any 'upmix' effect on straight stereo music.

Details: AVR is an older, lower powered Arcam AVR390, the speakers are decent quality MK Sound MPS300 (approx £3k per speaker when new, but I bought used) and a pair of DIY sealed 15" subwoofers one each side of the room. The loan amp was a Lyngdorf TDA1120, though I have also tried some other, but more budget stereo amps and also failed to hear any difference.

I feel somewhat deflated as I'd been eying up a 'decent stereo amp' for a long time and finally had some spare money to treat myself to one, but now it seems that there is no point if I can't hear a difference.

I'll likely be shot down in flames, or told I didn't set it up properly, though I'm quite proficient with REW measuring software and have a calibrated mic, so I would refute that. However, has anyone else found that they can't hear the 'night and day' differences that are often talked about on hifi/AV forums or am I some weird anomaly?

The only time I've heard a difference in an amp was when I tried some cheap £50 class D amp I bought off Amazon for my Atmos channels and I tested it out on the main L/R first: I can't put my finger on it, but the sound was somehow harsh/hard and just less enjoyable for music. Absolutely fine for Atmos though.

Edited by OldSkoolRS on Thursday 18th January 18:00

[Itsallicanafford]

I think the term ‘Guilding the Lilly’ occurs very rapidly In the world of Hifi. Personally, I very rarely rate the sound of one system as better than another, just different. I often read of people’s desire to upgrade and chase an improvement in sound and to reach an illusive end game system, but that’s certainly not for me. But fundamentally, it’s their hobby and cash so if they can afford it and enjoy the process, I’m certainly not one to judge.

[OldSkoolRS]

Thanks Itsallicanafford. I'm not judging either, just a little deflated I guess as it's so often said about how a stereo amp will sound way better than an AVR. Kind of hyped myself up to a treat after a bit of a tight period last year and now things are sorted. I'm just glad I didn't buy it outright and was able to loan it.

Funny thing is I can hear changes to certain settings on my AV set up, like the improvement a change to the subwoofer delay made after I measured with REW. I could switch that setting in and out, then hear a fuller bass sound (it removed a dip around 100Hz), but that's just tone/frequency response. Things like soundstage, depth, 'lifting of veils' and other terms often used to describe hifi I can't really detect, or deem significant to pick up on.

[OutInTheShed]

I have a few pairs of speakers.
One pair, an ancient pair of Leak Sandwich speakers, seems to sound the same whatever amp is used, until you crank up the power too far.
Another pair, Gale, sounds different from one amp to another IMHO.
With some music, I beleive I can hear a difference Bi-Wiring these.

I have heard some expensive amps which I have just not liked.

[mac96]

I would gave agreed with you in the past, having had various two channel amps which to me sounded much the same.

However:my current pre / power set up cost about £5k; I recently experimented by replacing it with the c £400 integrated amp from my home office set up. I was really surprised by how poor the (well regarded) cheap ampsounded. Flat and muddled.

So, I would say that there are big differences between amps, but it needs a big price difference to hear them. Not like speakers where there are big differences in the same price bracket.

[Billy_Rosewood]

Cheap (at the complete junk end of the scale) vs expensive.. Yes, huge difference..

Midrange or comparing Expensive vs expensive.. Maybe a small detection in sound signature (slightly warmer / wider stage etc)

The sound difference with tube amps is most pronounced imo.

[TameRacingDriver]

I've been into HiFi for about 25 years now, although I've never truly had the money to indulge in very expensive equipment myself, but I've had some fairly decent kit, and I've listened to some very expensive rigs.

Amps - definitely - up to a point anyway. My first amp was a Cambridge Audio A500, and to be honest, it was quite underwhelming, I was never truly happy with it, just sounded kinda 'boring'. Then I replaced it with a Rotel RA-01 and wow, the difference was highly noticeable. It really did bring everything to life, sounding dynamic, lively and detailed in comparison. Looking back, I reckon the Cambridge amp was just crap That amp did me fine for years.

My mate who was also into his HiFi got himself, on my recommendation, a Pioneer A400. That was a good amp as well, very fast and detailed. Lovely thing. Now he's got himself a Naim Nait amp, and it is a little better than the Pioneer but we both agreed that the difference wasn't exactly night and day. Mainly, it seems like a sound signature thing that differentiates the amps. Technically I guess they should all sound the same, as they are there to do one job, but it's obvious that manufacturers give them a sound signature to appeal to certain audiences or music types.

I'm currently using a Marantz PM6006 UK and honestly, it sounds fine to me, it's never occurred to me I need to upgrade it, and I've owned it for nearly 4 years now.

Sources - this one was even more subtle to be fair - again, a really cheap source is not great, but spend a few quid and you can get something that really does give you most of what is there in the music. Actually, I am very impressed with my little Audioquest Dragonfly Red, a USB DAC that I plug into a laptop, more on that shortly.

I also use an old Beresford Caiman II DAC on my current system, and have had no complaints. Again, it has been voiced to sound a certain way, the chap who makes them told me he was aiming for a kind of 'analogue' sound, by which I guess he means a little like vinyl. Anyway, one of the main reasons I use it these days is for the variable gain - my amplifiers remote control is too sensitive, so I just turn the gain down to make it usable

Speakers / Headphones - now this is where the differences truly are for me. You can definitely tell the difference between speakers. I remember taking a pair of Rega Elas to a mates house, he'd just bought a pair of B&W 604 floorstanders. When he heard the Regas, he sold the B&Ws and bought my Regas off me They were clearly better in every way other than bass extension.

Whenever I auditioned speakers, I could always hear clear differences between them, ultimately a matter of preference. Once I listened to a pair of £10k floorstanders, I can't remember who made them now, but the sound was really stunning, like you had the band right there in front of you, and no matter how demanding the music got, the speakers were fully in control. I guess with a pair of speakers like those, that is where you want a decent amplifier that can power them properly, as they had a lot of drive units, so you needed something beefy.

Headphones can be just as different, I've gone through a lot of pairs in the past, and frankly, never always been that impressed with most, even stuff like the Sennheiser HD650s and that sort of thing...

Now, one of my all time favourite systems is actually the aforementioned Dragonfly Red DAC out of my laptop, with some B&W P7 Wireless headphones connected using a cable, it sounds absolutely fantastic, and pretty much as good or better than anything else I've heard apart from those £10K speakers in the shop, and a few other really high end systems I've heard. Yet, the total cost for this system was £350! Of that, £100 was spent on the DAC (second hand) and the B&Ws were £250 on offer. The headphones are so good I bought Mrs TRD a pair (£130 off ebay) and we use them to watch movies using a BT transmitter in wireless mode.

So to summarise:

- Amps: Yes, but mainly because they're differently voiced, or an amp is crap or underpowered for the speakers its trying to run
- Sources: Yes, but up to a point there seems little point in spending more other than for ultimate bragging rights
- Speakers: Absolutely, generally more money definitely buys better performance, but a £1K pair of speakers will get you to 80% of a £10k pair

All IMO obviously

[OldSkoolRS]

mac96 said:

I would gave agreed with you in the past, having had various two channel amps which to me sounded much the same.

However:my current pre / power set up cost about £5k; I recently experimented by replacing it with the c £400 integrated amp from my home office set up. I was really surprised by how poor the (well regarded) cheap ampsounded. Flat and muddled.

So, I would say that there are big differences between amps, but it needs a big price difference to hear them. Not like speakers where there are big differences in the same price bracket.

Wouldn't you think that a £1,500 AVR verses a £2,000 integrated stereo amp would meet your price difference requirements though, given one is a 7 channel AVR with lots of extra bells and whistles, but the integrated should be simpler?

The 'flat and muddled' bit is the kind of thing I don't pick up on though: It either sounds bass light, or perhaps too bright, but sub settings and if necessary -1dB on the treble is enough to resolve that for me.

Tomorrow night I'll be rehearsing with our band and taking a valve guitar amp. I recently swapped between using a £3k Fender handwired amp to a cheaper, but still valve Marshall head with a separate cab. Partly due to higher output and also easier to carry the two lighter parts than the one heavy combo. However I can certainly detect differences in tone/distortion between these amps...just not with hifi it seems.

EDIT: I'm aware that hifi amps try to reproduce a flat response and guitar amps have a more 'shaped' response.

[mac96]

OldSkoolRS said:

mac96 said:

I would gave agreed with you in the past, having had various two channel amps which to me sounded much the same.

However:my current pre / power set up cost about £5k; I recently experimented by replacing it with the c £400 integrated amp from my home office set up. I was really surprised by how poor the (well regarded) cheap ampsounded. Flat and muddled.

So, I would say that there are big differences between amps, but it needs a big price difference to hear them. Not like speakers where there are big differences in the same price bracket.

Wouldn't you think that a £1,500 AVR verses a £2,000 integrated stereo amp would meet your price difference requirements though, given one is a 7 channel AVR with lots of extra bells and whistles, but the integrated should be simpler?

The 'flat and muddled' bit is the kind of thing I don't pick up on though: It either sounds bass light, or perhaps too bright, but sub settings and if necessary -1dB on the treble is enough to resolve that for me.

Tomorrow night I'll be rehearsing with our band and taking a valve guitar amp. I recently swapped between using a £3k Fender handwired amp to a cheaper, but still valve Marshall head with a separate cab. Partly due to higher output and also easier to carry the two lighter parts than the one heavy combo. However I can certainly detect differences in tone/distortion between these amps...just not with hifi it seems.

EDIT: I'm aware that hifi amps try to reproduce a flat response and guitar amps have a more 'shaped' response.

I suppose I would have expected a good £2k 2 channel integrated to sound better than an £1500 AVR, but I could be wrong, as I have no experience of AV amps and that 'opinion' isn't really valid, being based on what I have read rather than auditioning. And I suspect there is a degree of audio snobbery amongst some traditional HiFi enthusiasts when it comes to AV kit.

Still, in my experience, it has taken a lot more than a 33% price difference to make a serious improvement, and although I take your point about simplicity, I suspect retail prices bear a fairly loose relationship to parts cost.

What makes it harder is that there is so much interplay between components and unless you have a huge budget and a suitable listening room, compromises get made. I do without a lot of bass extension to be able to hear more mid range details, and I have chosen speakers (LS3/5as, a Marmite speaker!) with that in mind- which then of course means that I am more likely to be able to hear those mid range and sound stage differences between amplifiers than I would with other speakers.

Then there is source material- I listen mainly to vinyl, and there are huge differences in recording quality. With some, I'd say that 75% of my expenditure on kit is doing nothing, others can be wonderful.

Edited by mac96 on Thursday 18th January 21:19

[Caddyshack]

I have ste hearing (wear hearing aids recently) but I can really hear my monitor audio golds on my cinema av set up, the speech is much clearer that most other things I listen to and the music seems very rich and vibrant.

My hearing with the aids in is now actually very good and probably above or equal to the average person my age.

[clockworks]

I was "into" hifi in my twenties. Spent a lot of time listening at Grahams in London, slowly upgrading to a decent Linn/MVT/Naim setup. Very easy to hear subtle differences in arms/cartridges and pre-amps/interconnects, less so with power amps and, surprisingly, speakers - as long as the kit was set up correctly in the room.
My systems tended to be biased heavily cost-wise to the front end.

Everything changed when CDs came in. My first CD player, a Meridian 2-box using a Philips transport, sounded very "analogue". When that died, things went rapidly downhill. Never managed to get the same buzz from listening to music. Should never have sold my Vinyl...

Might just be my hearing going off, might just be that digital sources don't have the subtleties of vinyl.

A couple of points:

I'm not convinced that musicians necessarily have "good ears" for hifi listening. My brother, still gigging aged 65, has always been happy listening to very cheap music players. I guess his "musical brain" is filling in the gaps?

Hearing aids. Aren't you actually hearing the audio quality of the aids at mid and high frequencies? I got some a couple of years ago. Great for speech, rubbish for music.

[miniman]

I auditioned a bunch of speakers at Richer Sounds a while back (lower end of the price range). They hooked them up to a slightly more modern version of the Denon micro system I planned to connect them to, but also ran them from a low/mid-range Cambridge Audio amp and it was abundantly clear that the punchiness, clarity and energy was totally different. To the point where it seemed futile to upgrade just the speakers, obviously

[OldSkoolRS]

Does seem that I'm more in the minority with this view then.

Regarding speakers I can hear the differences and also when having a mismatched centre speaker in an AV set up: Over the years I have upgraded piecemeal and at times had a 'better' centre speaker while I saved up for the matching L/R speakers. I was never happy with those set ups, even one time when the speakers were all the same brand and I just went one step up their range with the centre.

mac96 said:

I suppose I would have expected a good £2k 2 channel integrated to sound better than an £1500 AVR, but I could be wrong, as I have no experience of AV amps and that 'opinion' isn't really valid, being based on what I have read rather than auditioning. And I suspect there is a degree of audio snobbery amongst some traditional HiFi enthusiasts when it comes to AV kit.

Still, in my experience, it has taken a lot more than a 33% price difference to make a serious improvement, and although I take your point about simplicity, I suspect retail prices bear a fairly loose relationship to parts cost.

You would still think there would be some difference between my AVR and the stereo amp though, unless it is all hifi snobbery though? The stereo amp was class D and my AVR is class A/B for one thing.

Going for a bigger % price difference; I have compared my second room Marantz AVR (rrp about £400) to the main room Arcam AVR (rrp £1,500) just for stereo use. I set the speaker and sub delays the same and checked with REW measurements. The same crossovers and as far as I'm aware they use the same crossover filter. Speaker and sub levels matched, no room eq other than the subwoofers (via an external MiniDSP 2x4HD).

Result was that they both sounded the same to me playing stereo CDs through the same speakers in the same room. Both amps running within their limits, so no danger of the smaller amp clipping, but still at decent levels according to my SPL meter.

clockworks said:

A couple of points:

I'm not convinced that musicians necessarily have "good ears" for hifi listening. My brother, still gigging aged 65, has always been happy listening to very cheap music players. I guess his "musical brain" is filling in the gaps?

I'm not happy listening to cheap music players and much prefer listening to what I think is a 'good' system. I also rarely listen to the music we play in the band, though I guess it's still familiar music so your theory about filling in the gaps could apply.

On the plus side it means there is no point wasting £2000 on a stereo amp that I can't hear any difference with. I have heard a demo of a nearly £200k stereo system at a dealer open day; it did sound stunning but I think that was as much the speakers as the amp, but also purely academic at that price.

[checkmate91]

I recently treated myself to a cambridge cxa81 amp and CD player to replace my aged but trusty Rotel 965bx cd player and Yamaha AS-700 amp. Astonishing improvement in clarity, depth of soundstage and, in the case of the cd player, new detail in recordings that I've known and played for decades. Wife commented on the fact that the old system was like listening behind a curtain in comparison.

Added bonus is listening to BBC Sounds via my LGC2 TV, the sound quality of the e.g. 2023 proms season was simply gorgeous. I've had a cambridge dacmagic200 for a while but the new amp is just so much more communicative and explicit than the old yamaha and the cambridge cd player, as said above, digs out far more detail than the Rotel which, to be fair is almost 35 years old.

All to our ears, ymmv etc etc

Edited by checkmate91 on Friday 19th January 09:38

Edited to say the Rotel is 35 years old!

Edited by checkmate91 on Saturday 20th January 07:36

[Flying machine]

In no way do I intend to come across as being a HiFi snob or anything like it, but OldSkool, you're still talking about a fairly modest 2 channel amp when it comes to HiFi.

I've got an Arcam AVR550/Emotiva XPA power amp with a mix of Monitor Audio Gold and Platinum speakers for my AV setup, and IMO I think it sounds pretty good, so not dissimilar to yours. I'm perfectly happy listening to streamed music through it (which I've only ever done very occasionally) and even YouTube music, but I have never used it as a 'HiFi' if that makes sense.

For whatever reason I also really enjoy just sitting and listening to music. I'm not an 'audiophile' (whatever that means) but I have built up what I consider to be a pretty decent HiFi over time, in a separate room with no screens, mainly for vinyl. It costs very many multiples of what I've spent on my AV setup, and yes, IMO it is far superior for 2 channel music, as it should be. I've gone through several combinations and heard lots of components, some borrowed, some demoed, and some bought - some good, and some not so impressive. In doing so I've spent a lot of money on pre/power amps, speakers, phonostage, a very good turntable and cartridge, but I enjoy it and it gets a lot of use. Whilst I totally understand that it represents a waste of money to some, I'm happy. Digital is great, but for me, vinyl sounds sublime when everything works well and I just love the whole silly, outdated, finickity experience of it and enjoy the physicality of the medium and sound reproduction. I suppose it would be interesting to take my turntable and put it through my AVR for comparison, now there's a thought....

It sounds like you should just stick with what sounds like a perfectly decent AVR system and put it into 2 channel mode when you want to listen to music, and enjoy!

[P700DEE]

I'm an Audiophile, member of the New Ash Green Hi-Fi club for about 30+ years and have little issue hearing differences between lots of bits of kit. the most defining test is the wife test, if she who doesn't listen comments on a noticable difference it is really there!
I am not in any way surprised that as a musician you don't notice differences in Hi-Fi. I think that people listen in different ways and appreciate music in different ways. Musicians tend to add in the subtleties as they know the instruments and how they sound and appreciate how the instruments interact together to give the full sound. Us sad Audiophiles listen for differences , try to pick the music apart into its component parts, try to build a coherent picture possibly without the ability to build this without the help of the Hi-Fi.
Listening to music is different for us all, if you appreciate your music without spending huge sums of money on esoteric kit then great; spend it on cars. Don't mock the audiophile, there is pleasure to be gained from our madness and our ability to focus on the differences can be learnt, even by musicians.

[OldSkoolRS]

Flying machine said:

I suppose it would be interesting to take my turntable and put it through my AVR for comparison, now there's a thought....

It sounds like you should just stick with what sounds like a perfectly decent AVR system and put it into 2 channel mode when you want to listen to music, and enjoy!

Interesting points Flying machine, though I'm surprised at the comment about a £2k stereo amp being 'fairly modest'. I suspect you'll find putting your turntable through your AVR won't satisfy you if you can hear the differences you mention in your 2 channel set up.

I'm not mocking audiophiles P700DEE, more just putting out my recent experiences. I wasn't expecting a dig about me being a musician though: FWIW I've been reading hifi magazines since I was in my early teens and at 16 spent an entire month's pay on a set of headphones (which I still have and use). I do appreciate some subtle differences in sound, which my wife completely misses (same when I've calibrated my projector as it all looks the same to her. ).

I think what this has shown me that the next time I see someone spouting the old line about a stereo amp sounding better than an AVR I can at least suggest the person goes and listens first rather than just taking it at face value. I often see it posted as if it is an irrefutable 'fact' and even a £300-400 stereo amp will sound 'better' than (say) £1,500 AVR. I do think some are just repeating what they've read though.


I'd had my eye on this stereo amp for quite a long time and I got a nice bonus when I took my pension in December, so it would have been a painless purchase. Even so I'm sensible enough that if I can't hear an improvement then eventually any honeymoon period of a 'new toy' is going to fade.

Funny thing is that putting this amp into my AV set up upset the cohesion between the channels as I had to use the amp's room eq for only L/R and subs, which meant the centre and all other speakers were just running without room eq. I felt it lost the Atmos 'bubble' I had with all the speakers corrected with Dirac eq. The mismatched eq across the three identical LCR speakers also upset panning across the front and I noticed for the first time in years that I'd struggle to hear dialogue in quite scenes.

Once I put everything back the AV sound is back to being 'wow' again: A scene from a series had a motorbike 'drive' through our living room and it was so realistically panned and dynamic that we both jumped. While I haven't rewatched the content with dialogue issues, I've not had any problems since. That I'm still having this feeling 7 years after buying the AVR is the complete opposite to the stereo amp that I lost interest in within a month of the home loan.

Edited by OldSkoolRS on Friday 19th January 10:47

[OutInTheShed]

checkmate91 said:

I recently treated myself to a cambridge cxa81 amp and CD player to replace my aged but trusty Rotel 965bx cd player and Yamaha AS-700 amp. Astonishing improvement in clarity, depth of soundstage and, in the case of the cd player, new detail in recordings that I've known and played for decades. Wife commented on the fact that the old system was like listening behind a curtain in comparison.

Added bonus is listening to BBC Sounds via my LGC2 TV, the sound quality of the e.g. 2023 proms season was simply gorgeous. I've had a cambridge dacmagic200 for a while but the new amp is just so much more communicative and explicit than the old yamaha and the cambridge cd player, as said above, digs out far more detail than the Rotel which, to be fair is almost 25 years old.

All to our ears, ymmv etc etc

Edited by checkmate91 on Friday 19th January 09:38

I think Hifi degrades over time more than people realise, if it's gradual, you grow used to it.

Also Hifi operates in a more hostile environment than it did thirty years ago, the mains is dirtier from switchmode power supplies, the air is full of wifi and mobile phone signals etc etc.Many older designs don't seem to pay any heed to these issues.

[fat80b]

I think there’s two things that always get overlooked / misinterpreted when doing listening tests between kit.

1) the ear can detect tiny differences in loudness that misrepresent as quality. There was a paper a few years ago that did blind ab testing and clearly showed that 0.1db louder was almost always perceived as better quality even though it was the same. (From memory I think the paper was comparing 16 to 24 bit and it basically proved that loudness matters more)
This makes it impossible for a mere mortal to actually compare because no two setups will be exactly the same level.

2) the shape and effect of the room dominates the sound quality once you have a certain level of performance. I.e it’s all well and good in a listening room in the shop, but when you have windows and curtains and hard and soft surfaces and objects in your living room, the room reflections dominate the difference. And any system is limited by the room that it’s in. You can try and compare in the same room, but then you are back at point 1)

[P700DEE]

"I'm not mocking audiophiles P700DEE, more just putting out my recent experiences. I wasn't expecting a dig about me being a musician though: FWIW I've been reading hifi magazines since I was in my early teens and at 16 spent an entire month's pay on a set of headphones (which I still have and use). I do appreciate some subtle differences in sound, which my wife completely misses (same when I've calibrated my projector as it all looks the same to her. rolleyes)."

Sorry never meant to imply either that you were mocking Audiophiles or making a dig about musicians. I wanted to emphasise that we all appreciate music differently and that we often learn a way to do so that I think differs in approach. There is no such thing as a right way. A minority pour scorn on anything that can't be backed up by GCSE physics. You can be a great musician and an audiophile. A certain David Gilmour of Pink Floyd took a distinctly Hi-Fi approach in one of his studios!