Humorous response on a different thread on the "5 minute" rule. Looks like a more reasonable test employed as well.
Post in thread '2nd generation EIGENTAKT PURIFI 1ET6525SA (successor to the 1ET400A)'
https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...a-successor-to-the-1et400a.56549/post-2156364
Thanks for the reminder about this - much appreciated.
I think it's useful to put that exchange in this thread too, so here it is:
Honest specifications is also called a hobby? What would be the rated power tested by a 5 minutes continuous sine test at 1kHz into 4 ohm and 8 ohm, all channels driven?
No idea, we are selling electric sound amplifiers, not soldering stations. Our amps are able to withstand (no shutdown for whatever reason) CTA-2034 pink noise at clipping onset for 30 minutes, all channels driven.
So one way we could think about this is this: Is there any scientific or engineering basis upon which to make a reasonable judgment about which kind of test is more useful to determine amplifier capability and robustness:
- White noise at full power for 5 minutes, or
- Pink noise at full power for 30 minutes
Putting aside the ad hominem for the moment (which I admit I've engaged in a bit here out of frustration), I can look at any sampling of
@amirm 's recent comments in this thread and find arguments and rationales for a test more in the neighborhood of test #2. I cannot, however, say the same for
@pma 's and
@restorer-john 's comments on behalf of the FTC test, which is more in line with test #1.
The only clear argument I see in their comments on behalf of a text more like test #1 is that the acronym "FTC" is equated with "the only ethical and proper type of test."
But to my eyes, that equation is precisely the
question we should be discussing, not the
answer that allegedly ends the discussion.
In that vein, it's quite rich for
@pma to have descended into accusing
@amirm of hand-waving, when his and
@restorer-john 's increasingly nasty and increasingly ad hominem jabs at Amir are fueled by a fetish for the FTC test without a willingness to engage in reasonable discussion about the merits of the specific parameters of that test. Yelling "FTC! FTC!" over and over again is basically the definition of hand-waving.
To the more reasonable participants in this discussion, I think it makes sense to ask the kinds of questions they've been asking, for example:
- Does the FTC test provide good insight into amplifier power capabilities?
- Are there other tests that provide equally good or better such insight?
- Does the FTC test allow for useful and sensible comparative data on amplifier capabilities?
- Does the FTC test provide useful insight on thermal performance?
- To what extent is thermal performance correlated with long-term amplifier reliability?
- Is any data available on the average failure rate of amps from the 1970s and '80s versus amps from the last 5-10 years?
And I would say that some progress towards answering those questions has already been made in the thread, but it has been obscured by some of the more strident and ad hominem responses.
Finally, it seems to me that none of the above questions were intended to be part of this thread, as
@pma clearly created this thread to document the beginning of what could be a listing or database of amplifier power ratings based on his testing method - which, if I read some of
@amirm 's comments correctly, is not even necessarily actually the FTC testing method.
So what Pavel is trying to do here is to expose ASR's membership to an alternative set of specifications for modern amplifiers, based on a test procedure that might or might not fulfill what the FTC guidelines say. His obvious and intentional focus in the tests so far is Class D amps, and he is using the large membership and traffic on the ASR site to drive eyeballs to that information. Not for any financial motive of course, but rather to try to get people to go by his power-rating figures rather than the ones Amir determines in his reviews.
That's fine, I guess. But let's no one be under any illusion that Pavel is interested in actually discussing the kinds of reasonable questions being raised by many in this thread, which I've tried to summarize in the bulleted list above.
Fortunately no one here gets to unilaterally decide what a thread ends up being about as long as the comments are generally on-topic. So personally I would encourage folks to keep discussing those questions, and to ignore the absolutist tirades about ethics, morality, and deception.