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[Gallium Nitride amplifier] Impressions of the Mini Gan 5 by Premium Audio, pictures / video inside

sychan

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Well, it does not matter for some people, though I have no objection if people to follow this way, and we should thank you for any objective contribution and scientific data, but for me it's like "the only parameter is you, you decide what you think is the right for you"

Of course, it is your own music setup after all.
The point is that even professional symphony musicians, who work in the top symphonies and have spent hours every day making and listening to music over the course of decades - these people are clearly still subject to biases unrelated to the quality of the music produced. So when someone presents their experience as a musician, or as a person who listens to a lot of live music, or as a person who listens to a lot of different amps as their criteria for sharing with others which amplifier sounds better, there's ample evidence that their preferences may have been different if the tests were blind. It isn't just objective versus subjective, there's also the quality of the subjective evaluations. If you are going to put in all the money and effort to buy and test these amps, why not also make them blind tests so that your subjective evaluations aren't so easily tainted by "flavor of the day" bias?
 
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daniboun

daniboun

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Just trying to understand....

It reminds me that someone here compared a Mark Levinson 333 to a Purifi and a Benchmark AHB2. According to the measurements on the various sites, including ASR, the Mark Levinson is far behind the first two amplifiers mentioned in reference.

From what I understood it is a blind test ) I imagine this type of test has some value

Here are the conclusions drawn from the person and which were hailed with much less criticism oddly ...
I take it that the person's credibility depends only on this blind test and that this blind test contradicts the measures? what happens next ?


"My personal conclusion:
Class D amplifiers have improved a lot of the years but Class D Amps are still no match to good design Class AB Amp.in term of sound quality and dynamic handling
Benchmark AHB2 is more versatile (good for all music) and more dynamic than the Class D Purifi Eigentakt
Class D Purifi Eigentakt is suitable for center channel, its slight compression and unnatural bias toward midrange makes dialogue more clear It is not an ideal amp for life classical music reproduction.
Mark Levinson 333 is the best despite its old age. It is the most life-like, with more weight on vocal , and more at ease when playing life recording classical orchestra at higher volume level
There needs to additional scientific measurements that can explain why the benchmark AHB2 sounds better than Purifi Eigentakt in my environment and why the levinson sounds more dynamic and detailed on loud classical music. Traditional SINAD, THD , IMD measurement using sinewave do not have the musical waverform complexity and can not explain the contrast of what we heard among these amplifiers in our environment. What we heard can not be explained with just THD measurement as they all sound good (not distorted) but different. As below certain THD, the delta is not audible."
 

mcdn

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daniboun

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the test puts everyone in agreement) thank you Amir )
 

antcollinet

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Just trying to understand....

It reminds me that someone here compared a Mark Levinson 333 to a Purifi and a Benchmark AHB2. According to the measurements on the various sites, including ASR, the Mark Levinson is far behind the first two amplifiers mentioned in reference.

From what I understood it is a blind test ) I imagine this type of test has some value

Here are the conclusions drawn from the person and which were hailed with much less criticism oddly ...
I take it that the person's credibility depends only on this blind test and that this blind test contradicts the measures? what happens next ?


"My personal conclusion:
Class D amplifiers have improved a lot of the years but Class D Amps are still no match to good design Class AB Amp.in term of sound quality and dynamic handling
Benchmark AHB2 is more versatile (good for all music) and more dynamic than the Class D Purifi Eigentakt
Class D Purifi Eigentakt is suitable for center channel, its slight compression and unnatural bias toward midrange makes dialogue more clear It is not an ideal amp for life classical music reproduction.
Mark Levinson 333 is the best despite its old age. It is the most life-like, with more weight on vocal , and more at ease when playing life recording classical orchestra at higher volume level
There needs to additional scientific measurements that can explain why the benchmark AHB2 sounds better than Purifi Eigentakt in my environment and why the levinson sounds more dynamic and detailed on loud classical music. Traditional SINAD, THD , IMD measurement using sinewave do not have the musical waverform complexity and can not explain the contrast of what we heard among these amplifiers in our environment. What we heard can not be explained with just THD measurement as they all sound good (not distorted) but different. As below certain THD, the delta is not audible."
Do you have a link to this post?
 
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daniboun

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antcollinet

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If I am not wrong a quick search :


You've clearly not read much of the thread. Massive pushback against unsubstantiated claims made from uncontrolled subjective listening. Look at page 6/7 - though it does start much earlier than that.

:p
 

mocenigo

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Just trying to understand....

It reminds me that someone here compared a Mark Levinson 333 to a Purifi and a Benchmark AHB2. According to the measurements on the various sites, including ASR, the Mark Levinson is far behind the first two amplifiers mentioned in reference.

From what I understood it is a blind test ) I imagine this type of test has some value

Here are the conclusions drawn from the person and which were hailed with much less criticism oddly ...
I take it that the person's credibility depends only on this blind test and that this blind test contradicts the measures? what happens next ?


"My personal conclusion:
Class D amplifiers have improved a lot of the years but Class D Amps are still no match to good design Class AB Amp.in term of sound quality and dynamic handling
Benchmark AHB2 is more versatile (good for all music) and more dynamic than the Class D Purifi Eigentakt
Class D Purifi Eigentakt is suitable for center channel, its slight compression and unnatural bias toward midrange makes dialogue more clear It is not an ideal amp for life classical music reproduction.
Mark Levinson 333 is the best despite its old age. It is the most life-like, with more weight on vocal , and more at ease when playing life recording classical orchestra at higher volume level
There needs to additional scientific measurements that can explain why the benchmark AHB2 sounds better than Purifi Eigentakt in my environment and why the levinson sounds more dynamic and detailed on loud classical music. Traditional SINAD, THD , IMD measurement using sinewave do not have the musical waverform complexity and can not explain the contrast of what we heard among these amplifiers in our environment. What we heard can not be explained with just THD measurement as they all sound good (not distorted) but different. As below certain THD, the delta is not audible."

Sometimes more linear amplifiers (or speakers) sound 1) "compressed", 2) "with a soundstage constrained in depth", 3) "lacking in midrange bloom" but at the same with an 4) "unnatural bias toward midrange" – in other words 1) harder clipping hence the differences between the louder peaks is smaller, instead of scaling them gradually, 2) lack of negative phase second harmonic distortion 3) less second harmonic which is esp audible in the voice range and 4) bass is not bloated, highs are not put forward, so it might seem in comparison that the midrange is instead put forward (even if not distorted).

Again, a bit of distortion in the "right" places may make the voicing of an amplifier more pleasing. Nothing wrong with that. It is a preference. And putting the "right" amount of distortion may be an art in itself. But as Papa Pass has shown, it does not have to be awfully expensive. Placing a premium for that feature is nowadays bordering on fraud, IMNSHO.
 

sychan

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Again, a bit of distortion in the "right" places may make the voicing of an amplifier more pleasing. Nothing wrong with that. It is a preference. And putting the "right" amount of distortion may be an art in itself. But as Papa Pass has shown, it does not have to be awfully expensive. Placing a premium for that feature is nowadays bordering on fraud, IMNSHO.

One of the reasons stated for people liking the sound of tube amps is that if their distortion emphasizes even harmonics, then it is considered euphonic (even if it isn't transparent). The MiniGAN seems to emphasize even harmonics
1633468941860.png
 

LeftCoastTim

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This entire thread supports my theory that most of us cannot hear -70dB distortion (0.02%). Since we can't, it doesn't take much "poetic language" to swing people's opinions (and bling and $$$$$$$).

Just reproducing CD's spec is hard enough. Hi-res is snake oil.
 
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daniboun

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Here Tom's last answer.
If he assumes that the measurements announced are true and will therefore be republished on the site even after Amir's test, then I'm sure he'll return a new amp to Amir and we'll all be fixed.
If Tom keeps his promise then we should be able to have a second test and we can put aside the hypothesis of a faulty amp.

On the other hand, if I had been in Tom's place: I would have tested my amp a hundredfold before sending it to ASR.


 

Kachda

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Here Tom's last answer.
If he assumes that the measurements announced are true and will therefore be republished on the site even after Amir's test, then I'm sure he'll return a new amp to Amir and we'll all be fixed.
If Tom keeps his promise then we should be able to have a second test and we can put aside the hypothesis of a faulty amp.

On the other hand, if I had been in Tom's place: I would have tested my amp a hundredfold before sending it to ASR.


That’s nice, but why not publish their own measurements first?
 
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daniboun

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pma

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Kachda

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