ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
There was what looked like an interesting new thread about a week ago, arguing (I think) that there is no perceptible difference between inexpensive and high end amplifiers. Now, if you find the thread via Google, you just get a Beoworld 'resource not found' page.
What happened to the thread and why? I am thinking that if there was evidence for this theory it would surely work against all the audiophile detractors regarding B&O, and support the need to focus on speakers.
Graham
That's because the thread has been moved after the Google crawler last visited.It was probably moved from the general forum because it lacked any direct B&O content.http://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/t/18016.aspx
Martin
Thanks Martin.
Really strange that a search on Beoworld wouldn't pull up the relocated thread!
I'd like to think that we could generate a B&O discussion out of it.
Apologies to our moderator, I should have made the intention behind the posting a little clearer:
B&O have, as far as I can recall, never obsessed about amps and after reaching a certain quality was attained in their amps have decided to use their time and energy to focus on other issues in contrast to audiophiles who forever worry about amps. This may stimulate discussion and memories of our time pre-B&O when we were so inclined and finally enlightened when we were bitten by the B&O bug.
Secondly, a number of people have started using receivers from other companies such as Marantz, Denon, Oppo and they may shed some light when using the same B&O speakers - perhaps there are some discernible and clear differences in amplification feeding a Beolab speaker - perhaps the audiophiles aren't completely wrong or OCD.
Thirdly, did fellow fans notice a difference when B&O moved from class A/B in the Beolab 8000 to the ICE amplification?
Fourth, do some beworlders miss their tube amps and fancy solid states from their pre-B&O days and feel they did something different/better but are happy with the overall package B&O offer now and glad they out their old hifi behind even if they loved their old amps?
.
Present: BL90, Core, BL6000, CD7000, Beogram 7000, Essence Remote.
Past: BL1, BL2, BL8000, BS9000, BL5, BC2, BS5, BV5, BV4-50, Beosystem 3, BL3, DVD1, Beoremote 4, Moment.
seethroughyou: B&O have, as far as I can recall, never obsessed about amps and after reaching a certain quality was attained in their amps have decided to use their time and energy to focus on other issues in contrast to audiophiles who forever worry about amps.
B&O have, as far as I can recall, never obsessed about amps and after reaching a certain quality was attained in their amps have decided to use their time and energy to focus on other issues in contrast to audiophiles who forever worry about amps.
This certainly isn't my area of expertise, but it doesn't seem to be a fair assessment. ICEpower is a separate division of B&O that has 50 employees, more than 40 of which are in R&D.
From their website:
The core brand promise of ICEpower is to deliver the industry’s best audio performance, efficiency and power density in audio power conversion. After more than 13 years of scientific research, ICEpower has been able to achieve significant leaps in audio power conversion technology.
I am wondering though, if there are any deficiencies in the ICE amps, can they be overcome with the DSP software in the speakers? This would be an advantage for their speakers.
As this thread appears to be staying in the General rather than Lifestyle thread, I'll repeat part of my comment from the other thread here.
It was always the case, from the appearance of Japanese Hi Fi amplifiers in the late 60's, that far too much emphasis was put on microscopically small amplifier distortion, whilst your 'average' speaker was distorting in the 1-10% range.
Switching between my Class D amplifier Olive One and my 1970's BM 2000 (rebuilt by Martin/Dillen) into the same Mk1 S45 speakers using the same input source (the Olive One web radio tuner with Radio Paradise selected) has absolutely no discernable difference in the output. Even at low volumes the Olive seems to have a slightly enhanced bass similar to using thr loudness button on the BM.
The only real difference is that the BM can take the output to a higher volume than the Olive, but the Olive output is more than enough for the aversge room.
The main difference is that the BM (Class A????) runs very hot with heat radiating from its heat sink-rear fins. The Olive runs almost cold, and the Class D amplifiers are apparently just 10mm square chips!
I wouldn't say that either the Olive or BM were cheap amplifiers as they are both of excellent quality, but I suspect that the argument put by Harbeth suggesring that the speaker quality is far more important than the amplifier quality is entirely true.