What you read on those kind of posts does not count because the reviewers can, and will, say whatever they perceived at the time. It has been proven in many studies that if the listeners know which gear they are using in listening tests, their preference may as well be ignored. There are probably too much to read on this topic, but try at least listening to Dr. Floyd Toole's video (free to view on Youtube), and/or read his books/articles. Based on what he, and Dr. Olive's findings, among other experts on this topic, I would say the kind of subjective opinions you linked are virtually useless except many of them are quite entertaining, and could be enjoyable to read. If you are interested, I can try to search one of those video (again, he didn't even seem to bother with amps as he often commented on that side, most can do flat FR in the audio band at very low distortions blablabla...).
Note that Dr. Toole's comments are based on speakers comparative listening, but if people are easily affected/biased in sighted tests on speakers, you can easily imagine how they can be fooled when comparing very well designed amps such as the ones we are discussing. There are nothing in the specifications and measured test results of those amps that indicate human beings can hear differences between them if used well within their designed limits. Be clear, I have no arguments with you on anything either, except the part you cited "...but from......notoriously warm..." and the linked video, and even with that, it is not directed to you, but that kind of opinions expressed in those kind of videos only. And, I am only citing Dr. Toole's comments on listening tests because you cited things you read, otherwise I really don't care what he/or others think or have said because opinions are just that, opinions, though in Dr. Toole's case, many of his comments were based on actual well conducted studies, and grounded in theories so that should carry more weight.
On the warm, musical, cool, dark, forward, layback kind of comments on amps, let alone the much more complicated AVRs, people are all over the map on their views, just read some of those Andrew Robinson kind of reviews and you may even laugh when to him, some Marantz sounded warm vs Denon's while other times he said the opposite. So, in you asked him, for sure he would tell you it's product by product, some Denon gear are warm vs Marantz cold, while in other cases it would be the opposite. Who are people to believe when dealing with such bs talks? For me, I resort to objective measurements and only read subjective measurements by the likes of Mr. Robinson's for entertainment when there is nothing else to watch on TV.
By the way, I bought my Bryston and then Parasound amp, and also acquired vintage Marantz preamp/power amps, among others, because I used to believe in subjective reviews like you do. My experience in double blind tests are very recent, for the Parasound, Bryston, vs buckeye, HK amps and for that purpose we actually purchased an amp selector and a speaker selector so we could do those tests with the ability to switch quickly, to minimize our reliance on memory.
It probably meant it has something to do with how you were doing your comparison listening tests, such as the often asked questions below:
- How were they level matched
- Were they paired with the same preamp/da
- At what spl, and were both amps driven to well below their rated output
- What speakers, impedance curve them would be especially useful in this case
- What is the lapsed time between switching from one amp to the other
- Was any tone control, room eq, rc used
When we did my comparison tests between amps, we not only level match with REW, but we actually do a sweep such as the following, that is just one of the several AB tests we have done:
In this case, if you can still hear more bass and warmth from the Parasound amp, you would have to ask, what the heck is the reason? Fortunately, we didn't feel the need to crank up the sub when using the Denon AVR lol..
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Lastly, thank you for being so open minded, far too often, people who turn negative and would say something like at the end it is your ears, not the numbers etc. etc. and end any further discussion. That's very fine to me too though, because I know it is impossible to convince someone that their brain/ears do not always tell the same story to others so what they heard only apply to them, not necessarily to others, hence subjective, not facts. All the objective side can do is highlight the facts found on the test bench, and the theories related to audio amps when discussion such topics on Parasound class AB vs Hypex based amps.
