If i may chip in..
As i said towards the begining of this thread, i had the opportunity to hear my speakers for about a month driven by my own Yammi 301 and an NAD319. The difference in the sound was quite obvious to me. Mostly, there were 2 aspects to the difference: 1) cleaner, more detailed mids (this i cannot explain, might be something related to electronics, distorsion, things that are beyond me…), and 2) the sound was more dynamic, the speakers were “alive”, as with the 301 they seemed flat, boring.
I listened to my usual songs, personal reference songs let’s say, that i know how they sound on my setup. So i tried to use these as a reference point, using the cues i knew to decide the extent of the difference (because for me there clearly was a difference, it was just a matter of “how much” and “in what way”).
Some say all amps sound the same at the same loudness level. As in, the amp should not change the sound, just amplify it. They should be transparent, or at least the good ones do. Then, i think that the NAD 319, being a more powerful amp, drove my speakers better, easier, cleaner than the 301. I’m not saying either amp “colors” the sound in any way, i don’t have the experience and the means to argue that, but something was happening, something was different and the power seems to me as being the “culprit”.
For me, the way amps are rated in terms of power, is not clear. I read about it, the way they calculate it, it seems to me it’s more marketing than anything else. And indeed, as someone else said here, the 301 may not have more than 50/60wpc with that power supply. I look at other amps and their specs, huge toroidal transformers, more often than not capable of max consumptions in the 400-500w (or more), lots of big capacitors for power reserve, and they are rated maybe lower than the 301 in power. Look at the Cambridge CXA 81.
I hope i’m not mistaken, but the 803 has a considerably more powerful trasnformer than the 301. Then, how they can both be rated at 100wpc? And i’m not trying to lose myself in specs here, but maybe that’s why they sound different? Because the NAD is 120wpc, but the extra 20w over the Yammi 301 is negligible in terms of dB. Then, maybe the construction itself (and more probably the transformer and capacitance) is the one making a difference.
I don’t know, i’m trying to explain it and trying to relate to things i read about, searching for an answer, so i would understand the “why” and so i would know what to look for. I may be wrong, i accept it, but then something else (that i’m missing here) is at work, because again: the difference is obvious, and i’m not (by any means) a fine audiophile with ultrasonic hearing.
Please, don’t throw rock, use pillows