What makes amps sound different?

warviper

I hava a Yamaha rx2300 and when I first got it I thought it sounded great but I have since acuired a carver tfm cb15 and have been using it to run my fronts with it. Last night I was messing around and I took the low end of my biwire run and pluged it into the yammy and it sounded like crap. It was so harsh and metalic sounding. I then pluged both into the yammy and it still sounded bad to me. Now the question is why do they sound different because they both do the same thing right? And Im guessing they use the same type of equipment to do it with. And the fact that the sound was still coming out of the yammy,through the preouts, just blows my mind away. Thanx for the feed back and maybe some one can recomend a better amp than the carver for smooth sound. Im actually thinking about going the tube route even though I hate the Idea of haveing to replace the tube every so often.

PolkWannabie

That's like asking why does a garbage truck drive differently then a Porshe ... ( No offense intended to any particular receiver )

Remember that a receiver by design is at least a combination of tuner, pre-amp, processor & amplifier.

Picture the typical size of those separates .vs. the size of any receiver. You just can shove that many quality components in one box without making it two feet high and two hundred pounds so something has to suffer and with receivers it's usually the amplifier section that suffers the most.

As far as amp choices go there are oodles of them out there. Some are good, some are great. You'll need to determine what your price range is and then audition the ones that fall into that range. I would suggest unless you have cash to burn that you don't overlook the used markets at Audiogon & eBay as you can get excellent deals for a lot less.

warviper

Yea I forgot that the yammy was an avr.

danger boy

Originally posted by warviper
Im actually thinking about going the tube route even though I hate the Idea of haveing to replace the tube every so often.

tubes last longer than most people think. several years in most cases with normal listening. If you keep the gear on all the time of course it will lower the life of any tube.

your results may vary.

reeltrouble1

Tubes can last a very very long time. My parents bought a Motorola stereo? radio around 1960, I have had it for the past 20 years, it still works and I have never changed a single tube, now it does not get much use but still a long time between tube changes.:)

organ

Amps can sound different due to design, power supply, reserve power, etc. How does it sound through the carver? If it's still metallic, it could be the pre section of the Yammi passing it on to the Carver.


"Im actually thinking about going the tube route even though I hate the Idea of haveing to replace the tube every so often."

You can start with a tube pre amp and keep your SS amp.

Maurice

dragon1952

What makes amps sound different?

Speakers!