Out of curiosity, because I read the 1 post of Aegir v Vidar, do any others of you have comparisons to make? I just wonder how great the difference is, if you are able to A/B, with level matching. I remember there used to be a guy who would pay you like 10 grand, if you could tell the difference between modern solid state amps, in a blind test. Tube amps are 1 thing, but solid state? I just wonder if the difference is discernible in a blind test.
@Porteroso ,
I venture to say that it is not unreasonable to expect to hear differences between amps employing different output topologies.
My experience: (as always, YMMV)
1) I bought a cheap Radio Shack SS amp (using BJT output) for breaking in single full range drivers while I was building cabinets for them. I found that this amp was horribly sibilant on most of the drivers! Put that same amp on a typical 2 way speaker, and it sounded OK; not great, but certainly listenable. With any of my other SS amps (e.g. Yamaha CR-1000 receiver or Sansui 4000 receiver or even cheap T-amp) there was no sibilance. I have no idea why...
2) I built a pair of Metronome style cabinets and put Fostex F120A drivers in them. The F120A is a well regarded Alnico magnet driver. On the Yamaha & Sansui receivers, there was plenty of bass, but the highs were missing & the mids were mediocre. I was about to give up on them when Martin King brought over a P-P tube amp that he found disappointing, as on all of his many speakers, the amp produced no bass. With his amp on the F120A drivers, the sound was full, rich & heavenly! And so I purchased a single ended pentode amp & built a dynakitparts.com ST-35 p-p tube amp. Both make the F120A drivers sing beautifully, although the 2.5 wpc SEP amp runs out of gas pretty quickly. Damping factor can't explain what's going on here. The only SS amp I have tried that sounds good with the F120A is Nelson Pass' Amp Camp Amp; 5 wpc of class A power.
3) Using the ST-35, SEP, and ACA amps on a transmission line design/build of mine using Fostex FF225wk drivers: I find that the ACA and SEP both sound quite good, but the ST-35 produces sort of loose, muddy bass. Don't know why...
IME, how a system sounds depends greatly on both amp topology and speaker performance. I have given up on trying to predict what will and will not work well.
Cheers, Jim