Sinad on integrated amps

[iv0]

I‘m just wondering what it means when the sinad measurement is low.

The sinad of my naim amp is in the 60s. I actually like the sound, so wondering am I missing something? Do I need to immediately change the amp? Is the subjective experience of the top amp in the list with sinad much better?

 

[staticV3]

Low SINAD means either high distortion, high noise, or both.

Harmonic distortion is kind of blown out of proportion and is inaudible in the majority of cases.

Noise on the other hand manifests as audible hiss coming from the tweeters. Upgrading to a high SINAD Amp will likely reduce this hiss.

However, if your current Amp is already silent at your MLP, to a point where you'd have to put your ear close to the tweeter to hear this hiss, then upgrading to a better Amp would hardly be worth it.

 

[iv0]

I only hear hiss if I stick my ear right in the speaker. Is this the only difference?

Low sinad anp is till capable of playing hi reso content?

I remeber a review where the bluesound was badly measured and demes incapable of playing actual high reso content?

 

[Vacceo]

I only hear hiss if I stick my ear right in the speaker. Is this the only difference?

Low sinad anp is till capable of playing hi reso content?

I remeber a review where the bluesound was badly measured and demes incapable of playing actual high reso content?

Hi res content is digital information, but you (or me, or anyone) do not listen to digital. The potential problem is that once that hi res content is "translated" to analogue and amplified, it may come with noise and distortion due to amplification. Still, if the treshold for the audibility of both is low (you don´t distinguish it), it should not be a problem.

 

[iv0]

so low sinad doesn’t necessarily means trash? (in my case not that cheap trash)

 

[mikitm]

Low Sinad means a higher chance to hear a hiss coming from your speakers (if you put your ear close to them) just like @staticV3 said.
It doesn't necessarily mean it's trash, just that it could perform better since there are lots of Dacs and Amps that measure in the 100s but that's just a number.
Some people can't really tell the difference between a 78dB or 92dB of Sinad, so you're most likely OK

 

[Talisman]

https://www.matrixhifi.com/ENG_contenedor_ppec.htm

This test was recently brought to attention here on the site.
Save your money, if your amplifier has enough power for your needs you don't need anything else

 

[staticV3]

so low sinad doesn’t necessarily means trash? (in my case not that cheap trash)

Correct. SINAD can be quite low and still be audibly transparent.

See for example this thread where some folks compared a 67dB SINAD Amp to a high-end Amp and found no difference in sound quality:

I'm amazed that I can't find a thread discussing this

I've been meaning to post on this for quite a while. The only (very brief) discussion I can see on it is in the thread on @amirm's review of the Behringer A500. Ripe for discussion at a forum like this. https://www.matrixhifi.com/ENG_contenedor_ppec.htm

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Vacceo]

so low sinad doesn’t necessarily means trash? (in my case not that cheap trash)

Most amplifiers do a good enough job at keeping noise low, so if you do not notice a hiss from your listening position, you should be good to go. Distortion is harder to perceive and it´s quite frequency dependant (something distorted on the midrange will be easier to listen than in very high or very low frequencies), so unless it´s very, very evident, you should have no problem. Cleaner amplification also helps if you are using EQ of some sort as a safety measure: it may or may not produce audible artifacts, but as any chef would tell you, using a baseline of clean equipment is always a good idea.

If you needed more watts for your speaker, that would be a reason to get a better amp, and in that situation, it makes sense to take the chance and reduce noise and distortion as much as possible due to being relatively cheap and easy with current designs. I personally add the element of efficiency (European electricity prices are quite insane and I loathe heat) as an important aspect, but that may not apply to everyone.

I´d tell not you, but Naim, that at the prices they charge, 60 db SINAD is unnaceptable.

 

[iv0]

I´d tell not you, but Naim, that at the prices they charge, 60 db SINAD is unnaceptable

sadly I already own it and that for 2 years already. Its just hard to accept that 800€ amp is supposedly better.

 

[Vacceo]

sadly I already own it and that for 2 years already. Its just hard to accept that 800€ amp is supposedly better.

You should consider also other elements beyond performance. Repairs and service, durability and aesthetics also count. The not so nice part is that thouse elements are not opposed to good base performance, so it should be possible to have the whole thing at a certain price tag.

Still, I´d not loose sleep over it. Do you get audible noise and distortion? Does the amp power your speakers adequately? If the first answer is no, and the second is yes; then you´re good to go. If for some reason you changed your speakers, that could be a reason to change the amp, but while at it, keep it as it is.

 

[GXAlan]

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The amp I used has a 5W SINAD of 22.

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[MaxwellsEq]

There's more to noise than just hiss. Noise acts across the spectrum and (depending on it's behaviour and coherence) can act as a floor below which signals become hard or impossible to reliably reconstruct. A way to consider noise is imagining trying to understand a picture behind several different partially-opaque sheets of glass*. Ideally the total stack of these glass sheets still lets you enjoy the image.
* noise is continuously varying, not static, as in this analogy.

In practice, the background noise in your home is likely to be greater than a Naim amplifier's self noise at a normal listening distance!

But, given that many amplifier designers can achieve 90+, you have to wonder why some expensive brands choose not to!

 

[Sokel]

There's more to noise than just hiss. Noise acts across the spectrum and (depending on it's behaviour and coherence) can act as a floor below which signals become hard or impossible to reliably reconstruct. A way to consider noise is imagining trying to understand a picture behind several different partially-opaque sheets of glass*. Ideally the total stack of these glass sheets still lets you enjoy the image.
* noise is continuously varying, not static, as in this analogy.

In practice, the background noise in your home is likely to be greater than a Naim amplifier's self noise at a normal listening distance!

But, given that many amplifier designers can achieve 90+, you have to wonder why some expensive brands choose not to!

I was given a test by my installers once:
"Can noise result in a one-bass note,or not?"

I had to dig,but yep,it does and surprise surprise it's not only about constant noise as a noise floor,is also about amps running out of juice mimicking hum blended with the music in every big energy demand.
(to understand it to all it's depth was already above my pay grade but I scratched some surface)

 

[iv0]

I have to say, when i was testing a NAD c389, I didn’t like it at all. It was death silent when no music was playing. It felt weird. For some reason the slight hiss is suiting to me. It gives me reassurance it works. At that point I compared it with a Vincent SV500 amp. Sadly the Vincent amp developed some weird pops audible through the speakers and after a very delayed repair, i had moved on. Also I grew to dislike the Vincent, it was slow (for electronic music) and felt underpowered. Also the built in dac was weirdly loud, so it felt like they were trying hard to fake quality.

The biggest issue with the NAD was that there was tons of noise maybe because of faulty cabling while music was playing. I was using xlr to rca cable (from the symetrical output of my dac to the rca input if the amp). I have a really dynamic dsd song, so i could set the volume to quite high. The music was weird.

So on one hand I really like my system, on the other I’m slightly worried that I miss some details. I have a nice Auralic player that is really fun and a cd player I hardly use, but also a good one (Teac pd501hr). A dealer had put it for sale by mistake. So I got it completely new with full warranty one year ago.

 

[JSmith]

I'll just pop this here;

Intermodulation Distortion

Intermodulation Distortion (IMD)

sound-au.com

IMD (intermodulation Distortion) is one of the main culprits that can make amplifiers sound 'bad'. It's heavily reliant on harmonic distortion (THD - total harmonic distortion plus noise), but not in any easily calculated way. Any amplifier that has harmonic distortion, has intermodulation distortion as well, and the converse is also true. Harmonic distortion (as its name suggests) generates harmonics of the original signal. A 1kHz tone will have 2kHz, 3kHz, 4kHz, 5kHz (etc.) harmonics, but in some cases the even harmonics are suppressed (2nd, 4th, etc.). Push-pull amplifiers (regardless of topology) fall into this category, and have predominantly odd harmonics only. This is never true in real life - all amplifiers, regardless of what they use as an amplifying device, have both odd and even harmonics, but the even harmonics can be below the noise floor. Just as it's impossible to design an amplifier that presents only the second harmonic, all amplifiers will have some of every harmonic present. Hopefully, most will be far enough below the noise floor that the distortion is not intrusive.

Unlike harmonic distortion, intermodulation generates frequencies that are not harmonically related. This makes them far more objectionable, because the frequencies generated are unrelated to the input frequencies. It's important to understand that the process of distortion (of all forms) is simply due to non-linearity. The amplifying device does not 'generate' the new frequencies directly, but they are an inevitable by-product of distortion. When the shape of a waveform is changed, the harmonics (and/ or other frequencies) are created simply due to the physics of waveforms. A pure sinewave has (by definition) no distortion, and consists of a single frequency - the fundamental. Distortion is due to non-linearity, and that modifies the shape of the waveform.

JSmith

 

[dominikz]

So on one hand I really like my system, on the other I’m slightly worried that I miss some details.

Given that you say there's no significant hiss in your setup that probably means the relatively low SINAD of your amp is dominated by distortion.
But distortion is very difficult to hear, and many will argue that distortion components below 1% (40dB below signal) are already inaudible in most cases.

You can use e.g. the Klippel Distortion Listening Tests to see where your threshold for distortion detection lies - most people will struggle to detect distortion as high as -30dB (3%)!

Lastly, I wouldn't expect that an amp with distortion-dominated SINAD of 60ish dB would generate any distortion components at 1-3% (40-30dB below signal), even when taking IMD into account - but best would be to look for multi-tone distortion measurements to confirm this.

In short I wouldn't worry too much about losing sound quality if I were you - though I can definitely understand that one would expect (and want) good measured performance in expensive audio electronics, even if there's no audible benefit to it!

 

[Vacceo]

There's more to noise than just hiss. Noise acts across the spectrum and (depending on it's behaviour and coherence) can act as a floor below which signals become hard or impossible to reliably reconstruct. A way to consider noise is imagining trying to understand a picture behind several different partially-opaque sheets of glass*. Ideally the total stack of these glass sheets still lets you enjoy the image.
* noise is continuously varying, not static, as in this analogy.

In practice, the background noise in your home is likely to be greater than a Naim amplifier's self noise at a normal listening distance!

But, given that many amplifier designers can achieve 90+, you have to wonder why some expensive brands choose not to!

Fun fact: few houses provide a better baseline for setting a listening area than a passivhaus. By design, they are extremelly dampened (thermal and accoustic insulation many often times go hand in hand) and airtight, so the environmental noise tends to be very reduced.

Another fun fact of the passivhaus standard: the use of gear that heats up the environment (like an amplifier) can be at times enough to heat up the whole room.