Audioholics - Stop Chasing SINAD Distortion in Audio Amplifiers

[SCG]

Not sure if this has been posted, a quick search didn't reveal anything, if so will delete. Audioholics posted a video about SINAD and mentions Amir directly.

Best reply in his comment section is this one: "Note in a recent video Amir talks about how SINAD isn't the end all be all but a good single indicator of quality engineering and thus good amp perform (correlation between the two not causation)."

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[Ricardus]

Gene's one of the good guys, but there are no downsides to chasing SINAD, other than expecting design engineers to do a good job, and possible costs to pay for that quality.

But as has been discussed in another thread here, how low does the SINAD have to be to be audible, and it was agreed in there (generally) that over a certain number we can't hear the differences anyway. But I'm all for good engineering practices, so let's get these distortion number as low as is achievable.

As Ethan Winer says, good specs ARE THE DEFINITION of high fidelity.

 

[DVDdoug]

I'm not going to watch the whole thing but I watched the 1st few seconds and he says:

Just because something measures better doesn't mean it's going to correlate to a better sounding product...

That's true, but probably not for the reasons he thinks...

Both products may be transparent so any improvements beyond that aren't audio improvements.

Or some people like bass boost or a little distortion, etc. Some people even think vinyl records sound better than digital and you can't argue with someone's preferences.

 

[sq225917]

I got to -120db on dac and pre, - 100db on power amps and gave up wasting time.

 

[Steve81]

As Ethan Winer says, good specs ARE THE DEFINITION of high fidelity.

There is more than just high fidelity, i.e. high reliability, feature set, and aesthetics. Once adequate fidelity has been reached, I would much rather have better warranty support than another 10dB of SINAD performance. YMMV I suppose.

 

[DVDdoug]

But I'm all for good engineering practices, so let's get these distortion number as low as is achievable.

Economics are also a factor...

Would you pay 10 times more for an amplifier that has 0.001% distortion compared to one with 0.005% distortion? Or would you drive 100 miles to pick it up, or wait 2-months for delivery?

I wouldn't pay $1 more and I'd be looking at other factors because distortion isn't even worth considering. In fact, I NEVER worry about distortion from an amplifier (unless it's clipping).

 

[computer-audiophile]

 

[Tom C]

The problem is that when you don’t worry about distortion, it tends to creep up in products as they are released over time. If we as consumers don’t keep watch over manufacturers, some of them will lie and cheat whenever they can get away with it.

 

[Deleted member 21219]

The problem is that when you don’t worry about distortion, it tends to creep up in products as they are released over time. If we as consumers don’t keep watch over manufacturers, some of them will lie and cheat whenever they can get away with it.

 

[Dilliw]

I get what he's saying in chasing SINAD or using SINAD as a sole determining factor of amplifier performance, but conversely with today's technology there's no real reason to compromise on SINAD other than for the art of the design.

 

[Ricardus]

There is more than just high fidelity, i.e. high reliability, feature set, and aesthetics. Once adequate fidelity has been reached, I would much rather have better warranty support than another 10dB of SINAD performance. YMMV I suppose.

No one said you can't have those other things along with high fidelity.

 

[fpitas]

As long as the distortion is better than 0.01% (80dB SINAD) I don't worry a lot.

 

[gene_stl]

If the piece of equipment stops working (prematurely) the audio quality drops to zero.

 

[Vacceo]

I'd rather sacrifice a bit SINAD to get Dirac.

The great thing today is that with something like an AV10 from Marantz, I can good SINAD, Dirac, and a gazillon connections.

 

[kemmler3D]

Tend to agree in theory - also there's possibly a double-edged sword effect here. If consumers chase SINAD above all else, then manufacturers can maybe "game the system" by having good SINAD but poor performance in ways that don't show up in SINAD.

Well, for example, Topping keeps putting out better-measuring devices but the feature set on each subsequent device isn't what you'd call imaginative or groundbreaking. Creative has put out DACs with much more interesting features than Topping for years now. But we audiophiles just get more SINAD instead of (e.g.) optical inputs or DSP or fun signal routing options or whatever.

 

[Hemi-Demon]

It's disingenuous of the video presenter to limit the ASR amplifier reviews down to one data point. It's maddening that folks keep doing this. There is quite a bit more information provided on each amplifier in these reviews, with no ads mind you.

He acts like he is the only person measuring at the knee. I also find it ridiculous that he wants the viewer to respect his resume, his technical experience, his hearing, then acts like Amir worked at a liquor store or something before testing on the AP.

Then he asks for a patron subscription. Why take shots at Amir?

 

[_thelaughingman]

It's disingenuous of the video presenter to limit the ASR amplifier reviews down to one data point. It's maddening that folks keep doing this. There is quite a bit more information provided on each amplifier in these reviews, with no ads mind you.

He acts like he is the only person measuring at the knee. I also find it ridiculous that he wants the viewer to respect his resume, his technical experience, his hearing, then acts like Amir worked at a liquor store or something before testing on the AP.

Then he asks for a patron subscription. Why take shots at Amir?

It's easy to take shots at Amir because pandering to companies that sponsor Audioholics sites is the only way for audioholics to pay their bills and keep generating revenue.

 

[GXAlan]

Something with good SINAD will sound great to most people most of the time. It says nothing about reliability or ergonomics. For poor recordings, a transparent reproduction of that poor recording will sound poor.

Something with bad SINAD might sound bad and it might actually sound good. This gets into the paradox of SINAD combining noise and distortion at a single number. For good recordings, lack of transparency may harm the sound quality. For poor or intermediate quality recordings, lack of transparency may provide psychoacoustic masking or other effects that result in a euphonic sound.

My two cents. Clean SINAD is what I recommend to others or when dealing with movies which have a much cleaner standard of audio. I have measured and ABX'd tubes vs. premium Class D solid state and I find reasons to own both.

 

[amirm]

It is the attitude of "not caring about SINAD" that led to Marantz taking perfectly good Denon AVR, screwing it up with bad audiophile ideas, resulting in worse distortion and a price premium to boot! All of this went under the radar of Audioholics because he doesn't do detailed measurement of the gear and what is there, has no spotlight on it.

We have a mess in AV world as far as performance because no one was paying attention to SINAD until we came around. Now we have near $20,000 processors that struggle to do with a $9 apple dongle does as far as noise and distortion.

It is also absurd that SINAD doesn't matter. Once you get north of 100 dB, distortion becomes very small and noise dominates. And noise is absolutely a problem especially in home theater where you may have 7 or more speakers broadcasting them. We once had a $130K active theater sound system at Madrona which had annoying hiss that was audible up to 6 or 7 feet. Once you heard it, you couldn't unhear it.

 

[amirm]

Here is our rank order of AVRs:

Notice where Marantz is, and where sister brand Denon is. Entirely different class. So much performance left on the table.