A couple of friendly points:
1) Sarcasm isn’t often seen as the best way to convey that one is relaxed, especially to people that you don’t know on the WWW. It’s up to you how you communicate obviously, so just a thought really.
2) On HUGs position:
‘You cannot make a mistake, aside from perhaps not having enough watts available to play as you like.’
Alan Shaw has gone to extraordinary lengths over the years to discourage arbitrary discussion of amplifiers and for good reason. The subject gets far more attention than is warranted, amplifiers have been a commodity for years, and one has to venture far into high cost wilful idiocy to find one that won’t work with more or less any speaker. You certainly can’t buy an amp that will fail in any mainstream av store.
That said, for what ever reason audio enthusiasts won’t stop thinking and talking about amplifiers. On this site we obsess about performance beyond the thresholds of audibility when we all know that we are long past the point where it matters. That’s fine. In the wider audio world a huge amount of money is sunk into telling audiophile consumers that there is some secret to a good amp and you need to spend, spend, spend to be in on it. You don’t, it’s almost impossible to buy one that won’t work with any speaker.
Alan Shaw was skeptical that a £200 amp could have received the necessary QA to recommend it. He didn’t say ‘plug your Harbeths into a a800 and it voids the warrantly’. He effectively said ‘be cautious about how cheap you go as if you send in an speaker that has clearly been fried by a broken amplifier we won’t repair it under the warranty’.
The list you refer to is a list generated by HUG users. The only purpose of that list in ASs mind is to limit pointless amplifier discussion to one thread rather than have endless discussion that just distracts from the main issue. Amps don’t matter anymore in most use cases.
Maybe AS was wrong to assume that a £200 couldn’t be good enough on QA grounds. I’m happy to assume it is safe on the basis of the evidence presented on this forum. But it has to be acknowledged that £200 amplifiers that can drive 85db speakers safely are few and far between, and the rule of thumb around rock bottom costs and quality is still a useful one, but as with all rules of thumb, will have exceptions, possibly increasingly so. We live in interesting times.
Again we have to agree that i disagree!
Indeed i dont know Willem but been in few conversation with him.
you cant be speaking higly about this forum and certain amps!
The A 800 is been tested good on this forum!
And because AS saying something just based on the price agree with him!
And few weeks after that discussion AS comes himself with a Z list with cheaper amplifiers.
also been in conversation with AS in privat conversation.
And no i m not referring to the list generated by HUG users.
I m referring to the flawless reference list Z list. Thread started by AS!
And i m not defending the a800. I ve been playing with all sorts of amplifiers! My most expensive one was accuphase 650.
Cause of this forum and the Harbeth forum, i bought the a800 as a test case!
i m not talking about reliability or anything else!
audibility i couldnt hear diffrence!
my to use amplifier is quad qsp pre and amp btw.
And if i come over wrong or not relaxed, it has to do with me not being able to write good and especially not in english.
i dont get angry or stressed out over hifi. I love music, but i also have an opinion and like to share that.
Especially if people start judging things because of price! And not facts!