just i need time and it’s not in my hands.

Ah, the ASR.

I’ll have to put it in the list in the other post’s comments thread - or maybe it is time for a new one. You know, the ASR does not score all that well in terms of dynamics [it is kind of laid back] and harmonics is just average. Thinking about what makes the ASR a decent amp for many people made me realize that we need another list for the amps:

Bad Behavior:

Many of the amps on the list have some kind of bad behavior: brightness or extreme dullness, tendency to catch on fire [I joke! … kind of ], or whatever - and the ASR does not.

We’ll have to add this bad behavior list to the lists…. This amp choosing business is so complex… luckily it is fun too!

Thanks,
Mike

to:
with analog and Tubes we find better result at lower cost and it help audiophiles have better result with lower cost.

I agree mike that many Class A/B amplifiers are better than Class A amplifiers.

a good approach should have good results even in wide implementing range and not in a narrow range.

I think solidstate and digital technology in comparison with tube and analog technology have narrower range and for implementing good result from them we should pay more care and cost and the final result is not as good as state of the art.
with analog and digital we find better result at lower cost and it help audiophiles have better result with lower cost.
it’s interesting that you see over 70k$ digital source and over 130k$ solidstate amplifier!!!!

I do not why industry replaced tube with transistor or replaced analog with digital but I hope Audio industry find correct direction.

regards
Amir

I think what Amir is saying is that it is defacto true that the biggest amps seem to suffer when it comes to micro-dynamics - and what I am saying is that I see no ‘technological’ reason for this to always be the case.

I think the expensive class A/B amps sound better than the inexpensive’ class A amps… a lot depends on the attention to detail than manufacturer put into the amp. In other words, it is not about the technology used,IMHO, but how the amp actually sounds - and that depends on many, many factors: the particular design used, chassis, wiring, components…

Re: the sound of this particular system with Pass Labs and Feastrex drivers - it was just an example of what solid-state can do, tonally, in a very narrow range (and in a system quite compromised from my point of view with respect to associated equipment). From what I understand, these drivers are very easy to drive and cost about $20-$30K per pair. The point is that solid-state amps, if they could drive more common drivers correctly, might have a pleasant purity that might counter some of their more problematic issues.

Re: auditioning. It is all about the speaker/amp pairing - and your preferences and tolerances of course. Unless you are looking at the better Audio Note amps or the Lamm ML3, you need to pick the amp that is best for your speaker - given your budget and tolerances for things like bass being a little weak or tone being a little washed out versus preferences like preferring an uncompressed midrange or loving that sense of ‘air’, for example.

These lists are somewhat esoteric, and perhaps we need to start a parallel disucssion on Best Amp for a Speaker. For example, the VTL scores low on many of the lists [and will in the future lists] but paired with the Sound Lab speakers [which have micro-dynamics out the yin yang but are quite hard to drive] they make a great pair for someone who likes the tube sound on the SoundLabs [which is very, very nice and very different from the solid-state sound on the SoundLabs - which is nice too (with a decent amp… NOT the Parasound please… try Sanders), of course, but somewhat more ethereal].

OK. Sentences too long there, but…
Thanks for your questions,
Mike.

And what about the differences in Class A vs Class A/B? You mentioned a low-powered Pass being solid state in the right direction? I’m assuming that this would be a Class A amp?

A nice discussion and useful lists, particularly for helping folks narrow down what brands they might want to audition.