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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Randy Savage" data-source="post: 163103" data-attributes="member: 545614">This experiment was done and wrote by Richard Clark...many of you know who he is....as i stated in the tube amp thread i spent the last several nights doing some tests on the "sound" of amps when overdriven or "clipped"--------seems this has become the "best excuse" to surface on why one amp may be sonically superior to another-----i have always excluded overloading the amps in my challenge since the issue started out as a search for what specs really contrubuted to sound quality-------and since it seemed silly to listen to amps producing double digit distortion in a quest for sound quality this requirement made perfect sense to me-----in my first round of tests I compared a JL, a Jensen, and a high quality home/studio tube amp (4 El-34's per channel in a classic push pull output) ------i considered the JL as representative of the best car audio has to offer----the Jensen as a brand that most "sophisticated" audiophiles look down on and the tube amp as a good example of high quality tube design----meaning it is a real honest to goodness tube amp unlike the market driven hybrid nonsense that is sold in the car audio market---------the car amps were powered by a motor driven GM alternator wired to a yellow top battery------the home amp was of course plugged into the wall outlet-------i tested the amps at the following levels-------driven right to the edge of clipping (0 dB overdrive)------6 dB overdrive------12 dB overdrive------18 dB overdrive------and finally 24 dB overdrive-------the amps were connected to a 8 speaker (4 per channel) JL array wired to 4 ohms so the power could be safely absorbed without damaging the speakers------the signal was tapped directly off the speaker lines with a lab grade bridging coil and fed into a digital workstation------the signals were then "normalized" for the same loudness since the amps all had different power outputs-------i then edited the tracks into a single easy to compare CD-------here is my first impression-------the JL and the Jensen sound the same at all drive levels--------ie their distortion is equally bad------the tube amp sounds a little worse at the higher over drive levels-------i don't hear any speacial sonic character from any of the amps and sure can't hear any "tube magic" that is so touted by tube fanatics-------no soft clipping or pleasing harmonics------just nasty distortion-------i was going to do a few more amps in the test but after this i believe it is about as futile as trying to find survivors in the WTC------at this point i believe i am willing to modify my amp challenge to allow any ampunt of clipping as long as the amps have power ratings (actual not advertised) within 10% of each other----this would have to exclude tube amps as they seem to sound much worse and it is obvious-----------anyone want to listen to the CD send me and e-mail and i will send it to you as long as you agree to send it on to someone else that is interested in also hearing the results in a timely manner----when i send it to you you will be given the name and address of the next person to send it to--------the music is copyrighted and i don't want to make lots of copies...........RC</blockquote>

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