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D5PRO BC - inspired from Dartzeel NHB-108 - endgame amp or?

Richard G said:
Before you asserted that no amplifiers have a unique sound :rolleyes: how many that are said to have a sound have you actually listened to, in a good system?
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What does that even mean 'Said to have a sound.'?

Said by who? Some muppet who doesn't have a clue how an amplifier works but reads (or writes) subjective reviews? And how are you defining a 'good' system?

If an amplifier has an inherent sound of its own, then by definition it isn't a high fidelity amplifier and shouldn't be of interest to us. Plus if it does have some sort of sound signature the best way to determine that is by looking at its measurements where that would assuredly stand out a mile. Casual listening will tell you nothing reliable.
 
Hi! I just created this account to contribute to the discussion. While it's true that a good amplifier shouldn’t have "a sound" of its own, it's also true that most amplifiers under the $1,000 mark usually do have some level of coloration. Mart68 is exaggerating with the statement: "If an amplifier has an inherent sound of its own, then by definition it isn't a high-fidelity amplifier." That claim is overly rigid and misleading. In practice, slight coloration is often unavoidable, even in well-designed gear. However, that doesn't mean such an amplifier isn't considered Hi-Fi. There are minimum acceptable thresholds for distortion and coloration that still qualify a device as high-fidelity. That being said, when many amplifiers under $1,000 exhibit a bit of muddiness, warmth, or tonal coloration, we tend to get accustomed to that sound. Over time, we may even perceive it as the “neutral” or “colorless” baseline—simply because it’s what we’re used to. Now, if a Chinese manufacturer somehow manages to clone a highly regarded amplifier and offers it under $1,000, it’s entirely possible that this new amp is actually more transparent—i.e., more “colorless”—than what we’re used to. As a result, we might start noticing subtle details in familiar recordings that we hadn’t heard before. Ironically, this can lead people to say that this new amplifier “has a sound,” when in fact, the opposite is true—it’s just more faithful to the original recording.
I hope I made my point clear.
 
catabeg said:
it's also true that most amplifiers under the $1,000 mark usually do have some level of coloration.
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Got any data to support this?
 
catabeg said:
There’s no need for data — just common sense. If a $1,000 amplifier could produce truly neutral sound, no one would bother building $40,000 gear.
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You may be up for a surprise.
 
catabeg said:
Although surprises are always possible, I was simply referring to what’s typically seen on the market, not the occasional unicorn.
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Share some of those typical examples, if you would -- particularly at the $40k per pair price point.
That's a bit too rarefied for my standard perusal.
 
mhardy6647 said:
Share some of those typical examples, if you would -- particularly at the $40k per pair price point.
That's a bit too rarefied for my standard perusal.
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Well, it was about DarTZeel, isn't it? A DarTZeel nowadays is around $40k if I'm not mistaken. Granted, it is the new model, not the model one, but I was highlighting an idea here: it is a clone of a highly regarded amplifier, with some innovation in it. If the clone is accurate, we could, in theory, expect a better sound than we usually have in a "normal" $1k amplifier.
 
catabeg said:
Mart68 is exaggerating with the statement: "If an amplifier has an inherent sound of its own, then by definition it isn't a high-fidelity amplifier." That claim is overly rigid and misleading. In practice, slight coloration is often unavoidable, even in well-designed gear.
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No exaggeration. If the amplifier has inaudible levels of noise and distortion at all frequencies i.e it is 'High Fidelity' what is there that can colour the sound?

You can buy such amplifiers for $100. Of course they will not have much power, they will not perform so well with reactive loads, but they are demonstrably not adding anything audible to the signal.

Why does anyone make amplifiers costing $40K ?

Because a lot of people don't understand what an amplifier is and how it works - but think they do.
Because some people don't only buy based on pure value for money.
Because some people are happy to take the advice of the salesman.
 
It's not that simple. Some distortions may be inaudible to most people, but there are individuals with exceptionally sensitive hearing. Even for the average listener, differences between amplifiers often become noticeable only when they are compared side by side. Additionally, frequencies outside the standard 20–20,000 Hz Hi-Fi range can affect a person's sense of well-being and can help listening fatigue. A fast transient response also requires wide bandwidth, far beyond the conventional Hi-Fi spectrum. And so on.
 
catabeg said:
It's not that simple. Some distortions may be inaudible to most people, but there are individuals with exceptionally sensitive hearing. Even for the average listener, differences between amplifiers often become noticeable only when they are compared side by side. Additionally, frequencies outside the standard 20–20,000 Hz Hi-Fi range can affect a person's sense of well-being and can help listening fatigue. A fast transient response also requires wide bandwidth, far beyond the conventional Hi-Fi spectrum. And so on.
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All amplifiers have bandwidth well outside the audible spectrum. A 'band limited' amp might only go out to 35Khz or so.

If the amp has a flat frequency response then transient response is as good as it can be.

When amps are compared side by side, levels are matched and the participants are blind to which amp is in circuit, and are asked to distinguish between them, they are almost always unable to. On the odd occasion that they can, the reason is readily apparent in the measurements.

The problem here is that 'audiophile' amplifier comparisons are not done with any controls and with no ability to switch quickly between the two amps. Memory is relied on since we all think we can remember the subtleties. In fact, we cannot.
 
"If the amp has a flat frequency response..." Well, when we are ALSO talking about "well outside the audible spectrum" and about power (let's say) over 100 W, things start to get expensive, whether we like it or not. It’s not just about frequency response; you also need minimal phase shift, low distortion, and more. That requires real engineering and innovation. DarTZeel made a bold move by eliminating negative feedback, offering a different approach, and many people say it sounds better. I agree it's not '40 thousand dollars better,' but it is better. And if I can get that kind of sound improvement in a $1,000 clone, I’m all in.
 
catabeg said:
It's not that simple. Some distortions may be inaudible to most people, but there are individuals with exceptionally sensitive hearing. Even for the average listener, differences between amplifiers often become noticeable only when they are compared side by side. Additionally, frequencies outside the standard 20–20,000 Hz Hi-Fi range can affect a person's sense of well-being and can help listening fatigue. A fast transient response also requires wide bandwidth, far beyond the conventional Hi-Fi spectrum. And so on.
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Almost all music program material does not have usable frequencies above 20 kHz. If an amplifier like the datzeel HHB-108 is according to the specs on their website able to amplify up to 1 MHz then it is susceptible to all radio frequencies in this f-range and there is a lot of high frequency noise in living room from LED lamps, mobile phone, etc. And spefifically the high frequencies can generate problems in the bulk of semicondutors. Therefore a general rule is not to make the f-band larger than the incoming signal is. Further, what I found is that not all DAC units filter out-of-band high frequency noise which can go up to 500 MHz from clock generators and processors.
Personal comment, if somebody will give me € 60 k what the price of this amp is I could develop an amplifer almost a year long. And I am sure after this time the performance would be also great.
 
catabeg said:
So, this EL84 tube amplifier is colorless? I very much doubt it. It may sound very good, but not colorless.
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Quite the contrary. Note the name of the concern and reflect on your earlier "common sense" comment. And have an excellent day.
 
catabeg said:
"If the amp has a flat frequency response..." Well, when we are ALSO talking about "well outside the audible spectrum" and about power (let's say) over 100 W, things start to get expensive, whether we like it or not. It’s not just about frequency response; you also need minimal phase shift, low distortion, and more. That requires real engineering and innovation. DarTZeel made a bold move by eliminating negative feedback, offering a different approach, and many people say it sounds better. I agree it's not '40 thousand dollars better,' but it is better. And if I can get that kind of sound improvement in a $1,000 clone, I’m all in.
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DarTzeel are not even remotely the first company to produce an amplifier without global feedback. Note that it still uses feedback, otherwise it would be a disaster. This is really just marketing and nothing new at all.

It's got plenty of power, it looks fancy, these are valid reasons to buy it - or the 'clone' - but don't buy on the grounds that it has some unique quality, because it really doesn't.
 
Yes, it does use some locally applied feedback, but not global feedback, I thought that was clear from what I said. I never claimed darTZeel was the first company to take this approach. Please read what I actually wrote: ‘offering a different approach’ in this endeavor. I hope you're not expecting a deep technical dive here.
Now, let’s consider how different it really is from a typical $1,000 Hi-Fi amplifier. In the blind tests you're referring to, people often don’t hear differences when THD is below 0.1% and the frequency response deviates less than ±0.5 dB across the audible range. Fair enough, but even those blind tests were conducted using high-end amplifiers, not just any typical Hi-Fi gear. Anyway, please tell me, how many $1,000 amplifiers do you know that meet the HiFi specs and can deliver 225 watts into 4 ohms? Are they really lying around everywhere?
 
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mhardy6647 said:
Quite the contrary. Note the name of the concern and reflect on your earlier "common sense" comment. And have an excellent day.
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Thank you, but you didn’t understand the point. I wasn’t denying that there are crazy people out there trying to charge a lot of money for nothing, I was saying something else. There are people genuinely trying to improve amplifier designs, even if that means selling them too expensive. Now, I’m not willing to pay $40,000 for that kind of improvement, but if someone in China builds a clone for $1,000, why shouldn’t I consider it? Some engineers even argue that it is a real improvement. Just look at that 10 kHz square wave response: do you really think any average Hi-Fi amplifier can reproduce that? See: "Dartzeel NHB-108 Model One Power Amplifier Measurements" by John Atkinson.
 
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