I believe this is a topic that gets a lot of coverage but i would like to address it still in this post.
Long story short i am on the lookout to "upgrade" my NAD C320BEE. Ofc i'm not made of money so about£600-700 or up to 1000USD is the budget. I am am talking solid state here and not tube amps.
In principle an integrated amp shouldn't affect the sound, it should simply amplify the signal and just provide an exact copy of the input but magnified x-times.
the amp, in my opinion, should do the following:
1) provide enough power to drive 4 to 8 ohm loads. in a reliable manner - most of them do that
2) provide enough power to handle low frequency transients ( like thumps, fast bass lines etc).
3) have a good design for handling high freq transients in an as close possible to a natural sounding manner.
4) have a really low floor noise with a good THD and signal to noise ratio (i understand anything over 70dbA is perfectly fine).
I believe that any deviation from ideality on these 3 points that i have outlined leads to amp "sounding" in a certain way. i am talking about un-intended consequence from circuit design and not manufacturers intentionally designing the circuitry and use of components that do "color" the sound to their liking.
Now back to my story- i was looking at several amps (Rega IO, Rega Brio, Audiolab 6000A).. I usually look for pictures of the inside circuitry and like many of us here i look at the toroidal transformer and electrolytic capacitor "capacity" first. As i understand it the capacity defines how much power one amp can deliver per channel in a reliable manner. Also them being part of the power delivery stage, a bigger capacity would allow- in principle- bigger transients with a bit of power overhead left over for instantaneous high power delivery. Now, for example : the Io has 2x6800uF capacitors (for 30W max power), while the 6000A has 4x15000uF (for 50W per channel). For sake of comparison my NAD C320BEE has 2x15000uF (for 50W). They obviously all can drive a lot of speakers but i was wondering what actually does matter in this case: is it the total capacitance or how well these capacitors charge and discharge to handle transients ( especially low freq ones). To word it differently, does the amount (ofc down to some reasonable extent) matter more than the make and quality of the component (in this case electrolytic capacitor).
I believe the same argument would hold for micro transients but there there are several ways of addressing them by circuit designing and component matching.
I am not talking here about the preamp stage which may also play a role.
Perhaps some of you connoisseurs can enlighten me and hlep me make an even more informed decision when buying future amps.
Thanks!
Long story short i am on the lookout to "upgrade" my NAD C320BEE. Ofc i'm not made of money so about£600-700 or up to 1000USD is the budget. I am am talking solid state here and not tube amps.
In principle an integrated amp shouldn't affect the sound, it should simply amplify the signal and just provide an exact copy of the input but magnified x-times.
the amp, in my opinion, should do the following:
1) provide enough power to drive 4 to 8 ohm loads. in a reliable manner - most of them do that
2) provide enough power to handle low frequency transients ( like thumps, fast bass lines etc).
3) have a good design for handling high freq transients in an as close possible to a natural sounding manner.
4) have a really low floor noise with a good THD and signal to noise ratio (i understand anything over 70dbA is perfectly fine).
I believe that any deviation from ideality on these 3 points that i have outlined leads to amp "sounding" in a certain way. i am talking about un-intended consequence from circuit design and not manufacturers intentionally designing the circuitry and use of components that do "color" the sound to their liking.
Now back to my story- i was looking at several amps (Rega IO, Rega Brio, Audiolab 6000A).. I usually look for pictures of the inside circuitry and like many of us here i look at the toroidal transformer and electrolytic capacitor "capacity" first. As i understand it the capacity defines how much power one amp can deliver per channel in a reliable manner. Also them being part of the power delivery stage, a bigger capacity would allow- in principle- bigger transients with a bit of power overhead left over for instantaneous high power delivery. Now, for example : the Io has 2x6800uF capacitors (for 30W max power), while the 6000A has 4x15000uF (for 50W per channel). For sake of comparison my NAD C320BEE has 2x15000uF (for 50W). They obviously all can drive a lot of speakers but i was wondering what actually does matter in this case: is it the total capacitance or how well these capacitors charge and discharge to handle transients ( especially low freq ones). To word it differently, does the amount (ofc down to some reasonable extent) matter more than the make and quality of the component (in this case electrolytic capacitor).
I believe the same argument would hold for micro transients but there there are several ways of addressing them by circuit designing and component matching.
I am not talking here about the preamp stage which may also play a role.
Perhaps some of you connoisseurs can enlighten me and hlep me make an even more informed decision when buying future amps.
Thanks!