Specific use case inquiry for SUPER-FI

[voodooless]

That, or several affordable (e.g. Fosi) monoblocks hooked to the Focusrite interface. If you are willing to do your crossovers / DSP on the PC it can be very cost-effective and convenient.

Sure, that works as well. Don’t fuss too much about the load dependance of the Fosi if your applying EQ, it’s easily resolved.

 

[Lab_Experiment]

That, or several affordable (e.g. Fosi) monoblocks hooked to the Focusrite interface. If you are willing to do your crossovers / DSP on the PC it can be very cost-effective and convenient.

My only grief with the fosi is the attached graph above on comment #24 it seems to start to have some more troubles with higher frequencies

 

[voodooless]

There must be brands that just focus exclusively on signal amplification?

Sure, most amps do… just pick any old well reviewed amp.

 

[voodooless]

My only grief with the fosi is the attached graph above on comment #24 it seems to start to have some more troubles with higher frequencies

It’s a fair concern. I think in reality it’s better than the graph suggests. Look at the multitone:

It’s indeed wose at higher frequencies, but not that bad. And remember, you cannot hear distortion of tones above 10 kHz, those are ultrasonic.

 

[kemmler3D]

Are one of the units from this line measured? I have two main concerns with this thing. First of all it says built in DSP which hints at an extra ANALOG->DIGITAL then DIGITAL->ANALOG stage in the signal chain which is something I want to avoid. I don't want any conversion in my signal chain after the RME DAC. That is very important to me. Otherwise, it seems resources are put into this product that could be spent purely on amplification.

Same as above^^^ just want gain plain and simple gain no DSP. There must be brands that just focus exclusively on signal amplification?

Haven't seen actual measurements, but Hypex tends to be pretty truthful / reliable when it comes to specs. I would use digital input to avoid the ADC / DAC as you note, but their DAC is probably quite transparent compared to the amp or the speakers themselves.

In contrast you have your Crown XLI which is one of the worst ever measured for distortion, noise is okay but nothing special:

Crown XLi 800 Power Amplifier Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Crown XLi 800 pro Power Amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member. The XLi 800 costs just US $269 including free shipping. Hard to imagine so much electronics from a brand name company selling for so little. NOTE: my company (Madrona...

www.audiosciencereview.com

You can get a bunch of these to run multiple channels and they're massively (~100x) cleaner than the XLI - you can get better measuring amps, but for the money these are hard to beat. Since you want to run multiple channels / crossovers I would really consider it.

Fosi Audio V3 Mono Amplifier Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Fosi Audio V3 Mono class D amplifier. It was sent to me by the company. The price with the power supply I tested is US $139.99. I must say the concept of a "monoblock" amplifier in such a small size runs foul of any expectation a longtime...

www.audiosciencereview.com

My only grief with the fosi is the attached graph above on comment #24 it seems to start to have some more troubles with higher frequencies

They're relatively worse at high frequency but still beat the Crown at any given frequency... it would be a noticeable upgrade, if you're putting your ear right up to the cone.

Crown amps are good for their intended purpose - lots of cheap power from boxes that won't break if you use them on stage. But for your use case it's not ideal.

 

[Lab_Experiment]

It’s a fair concern. I think in reality it’s better than the graph suggests. Look at the multitone:

Haven't seen actual measurements, but Hypex tends to be pretty truthful / reliable when it comes to specs. I would use digital input to avoid the ADC / DAC as you note, but their DAC is probably quite transparent compared to the amp or the speakers themselves.

In contrast you have your Crown XLI which is one of the worst ever measured for distortion, noise is okay but nothing special:

Crown XLi 800 Power Amplifier Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Crown XLi 800 pro Power Amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member. The XLi 800 costs just US $269 including free shipping. Hard to imagine so much electronics from a brand name company selling for so little. NOTE: my company (Madrona...

www.audiosciencereview.com

You can get a bunch of these to run multiple channels and they're massively (~100x) cleaner than the XLI - you can get better measuring amps, but for the money these are hard to beat. Since you want to run multiple channels / crossovers I would really consider it.

Fosi Audio V3 Mono Amplifier Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Fosi Audio V3 Mono class D amplifier. It was sent to me by the company. The price with the power supply I tested is US $139.99. I must say the concept of a "monoblock" amplifier in such a small size runs foul of any expectation a longtime...

www.audiosciencereview.com

They're relatively worse at high frequency but still beat the Crown at any given frequency... it would be a noticeable upgrade, if you're putting your ear right up to the cone.

Crown amps are good for their intended purpose - lots of cheap power from boxes that won't break if you use them on stage. But for your use case it's not ideal.

I'm quite interested in what 130$ could get me given the measurements. I think I would actually get a fosi just out of curiosity but the only thing killing me right now are the RCA unbalanced inputs which is the same thing that's killing me about the vidar and aegir.

Only thing killing me about the topping products are the iffy comments about customer service which may or may not be real I don't know. 2 year warranty seems promising though.

 

[voodooless]

Look at the ZA3, it has balanced inputs.

Fosi Audio ZA3 Amplifier Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Fosi Audio ZA3 stereo amplifier with balanced XLR inputs. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $149.99 with 48 volt power supply. The amplifier has really dressed up from its earlier origins of common enclosures in budget class...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Or wait for this one:

Fosi Audio V3 Mono Power Amplifier

Crafted for HiFi audiophiles, the V3 Mono allows you to drive a single passive speaker with one amp, delivering up to 240W @4Ω of rated power.

fosiaudio.com

 

[kemmler3D]

I'm quite interested in what 130$ could get me given the measurements. I think I would actually get a fosi just out of curiosity but the only thing killing me right now are the RCA unbalanced inputs which is the same thing that's killing me about the vidar and aegir.

Only thing killing me about the topping products are the iffy comments about customer service which may or may not be real I don't know. 2 year warranty seems promising though.

Well, keep in mind that these numbers are achieved with unbalanced connections. Yes they're more vulnerable to interference, but on short runs it usually doesn't matter.

 

[Koeitje]

One thing to keep in mind about this site is not everyone is an english speaker, a lot of users will actually use translation apps to/from their own language here. The language of the forum is english but sometimes meaning gets lost in translation, literally. So long wordy posts can miss the mark with some people.

@Koeitje was IMO unnecessarily rude here but I agree with the recommendation. The Hypex plate amps (any of them ending with a "3") have a lot of functionality that sounds like would be helpful to you and the noise / distortion performance is very good.

I have no trouble with English, it's just that they seem to struggle to put their thoughts on paper in a concise way. Good writing is always about less being more. Go for brevity when it comes to putting your thoughts on paper.

But I still don't understand what they want. They seem to want a bunch of amplifiers to drive some car audio tweeters. We gave them state of the art amplifier options and its still not good enough.

They also doesn't understand that it doesn't matter if your amplifier has 0,01 or 0,001% of distortion when every single driver they are going to use will have orders of magnitude more distortion. Even an extra ADC/DAC step will not influence that. Perhaps a placebo effect is what they are looking for and not actual system performance?

I am looking forward to seeing some measurements of those incredible speaker designs they mentioned.

 

[Salt]

Just wait a minute, I'm running out of popcorn ... will be back soon

 

[antcollinet]

what is happening at +16k? YES I CAN HEAR THAT STUFF IT IS VERY IMPORTANT

You cant hear the harmonics of 16K though (which are at least at 32KHz) - which that chart is showing. Basically the harmonics of anything 10KHz and up will be at least 20Khz, and hence inaudible.

 

[Koeitje]

I'm trying to compensate for less power by going with more efficient drivers, and closer positioning to the ear.

Sounds like what you need is a high end headphone. Dan Clark Aeon RT is within your budget and has low distortion and full range output even at the sub bass (that's where many headphones falter). Has essentially no distortion up to 104dB.

 

[kemmler3D]

I have no trouble with English, it's just that they seem to struggle to put their thoughts on paper in a concise way. Good writing is always about less being more. Go for brevity when it comes to putting your thoughts on paper.

But I still don't understand what they want. They seem to want a bunch of amplifiers to drive some car audio tweeters. We gave them state of the art amplifier options and its still not good enough.

They also doesn't understand that it doesn't matter if your amplifier has 0,01 or 0,001% of distortion when every single driver they are going to use will have orders of magnitude more distortion. Even an extra ADC/DAC step will not influence that. Perhaps a placebo effect is what they are looking for and not actual system performance?

I am looking forward to seeing some measurements of those incredible speaker designs they mentioned.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply you have any trouble with English, I was more trying to warn OP that ...creatively worded, long posts may not land well here. I agree that it's hard to discern what problem needs to be solved here and OP is probably reinventing the wheel in various ways, but what seems to be clear by now is they simply want a cleaner amp to experiment with drivers.

You may not see the point in it, but they seem to be having fun with it, so I don't see a problem. We should meet folks where they are, if they're not ready to hear about audibility thresholds, hopefully they come back and read about it later.

 

[Salt]

Back with fresh Popcorn ... see there is some educational aspect coming in .... but still running in circles...

 

[Lab_Experiment]

Look at the ZA3, it has balanced inputs.

Fosi Audio ZA3 Amplifier Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Fosi Audio ZA3 stereo amplifier with balanced XLR inputs. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $149.99 with 48 volt power supply. The amplifier has really dressed up from its earlier origins of common enclosures in budget class...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Or wait for this one:

Fosi Audio V3 Mono Power Amplifier

Crafted for HiFi audiophiles, the V3 Mono allows you to drive a single passive speaker with one amp, delivering up to 240W @4Ω of rated power.

fosiaudio.com

When I saw these I got quite excited. Purely out of curiosity, and for the great benefit of man-kind, I am tempted to buy a ZA3 and a Gjallarhorn for the money I just about gave to TOPPING. I just about jumped up on my desk ready to rip my shirt off and scream to all my neighbors as a prayer to ZEUS to get an LA90 that isn't broken but after thinking about it for a bit I came to my senses. I read every one of the 44 pages (861 posts) on the LA90, as well as a thread where 50% of the users (32 users) voted on having problems. Rolling the dice is fun sometimes but my life is too bad right now to lose 800$. I may not be able to handle it without my mental health being severely negatively impacted.

You cant hear the harmonics of 16K though (which are at least at 32KHz) - which that chart is showing. Basically the harmonics of anything 10KHz and up will be at least 20Khz, and hence inaudible.

When I move my EQ knob in the region of 16-20kHz region things happen. Playing with a low-pass filter does things I feel the entire thing. The actual experience around 20k is quite interesting, it almost feels like being breathed on or something its very light and if I'm not paying attention then its not really there. It requires active listening if that makes sense. Easy to get a headache though when overdone. I try to be careful with that stuff.

Sounds like what you need is a high end headphone. Dan Clark Aeon RT is within your budget and has low distortion and full range output even at the sub bass (that's where many headphones falter). Has essentially no distortion up to 104dB.

Headphones just don't have a weight to them that I'm missing. I'm really looking for something to send me to the grave early. With woofers I can send enough power to vibrate the cabinet. Its just another level of experience that headphones will never give for physics reasons. What I attach my woofers to is an assembly that usually weighs 100lbs so it stops vibration that kills the output. Cabinet vibration is the enemy of speaker output. I could do better with something heavier. Eventually I want to mount my speakers to something welded that weighs 400lbs I know based on my different experiments that it would sound an actual order of magnitude louder than the MDF which is already quite heavy.

I have a bit of a headache but I might go through the entire SINAD list today to see if there is anything else that is very promising. Maybe I will just trust the measurements maybe not. I'm starting to hallucinate because I've been reading information for hours.

 

[kemmler3D]

When I move my EQ knob in the region of 16-20kHz region things happen. Playing with a low-pass filter does things I feel the entire thing

This makes sense, but harmonics are generally 2x, 3x or more of the base frequency. So the harmonic of 10khz is 20khz already, which is at the upper limit of most people's hearing. This is why you may not need to worry about upper frequency distortion as much.

I'm really looking for something to send me to the grave early. With woofers I can send enough power to vibrate the cabinet. Its just another level of experience that headphones will never give for physics reasons.

Sounds like you appreciate "tactile" bass. It is a real thing and you don't get it from headphones, it's true.

This generally comes from capable woofers in the < 150hz frequency range, some also believe you need large cones to really achieve it.

As such I might suggest building some M2 Clones, as an endgame-level DIY project, but don't sit with your ear next to them...

 

[Lab_Experiment]

This makes sense, but harmonics are generally 2x, 3x or more of the base frequency. So the harmonic of 10khz is 20khz already, which is at the upper limit of most people's hearing. This is why you may not need to worry about upper frequency distortion as much.

Sounds like you appreciate "tactile" bass. It is a real thing and you don't get it from headphones, it's true.

This generally comes from capable woofers in the < 150hz frequency range, some also believe you need large cones to really achieve it.

As such I might suggest building some M2 Clones, as an endgame-level DIY project, but don't sit with your ear next to them...

Oh I actually had 2 B&C 21SW152s on order about 2 years ago lol I waited 4 months then amazon said they couldn't fill the order )))))) now I'm salivating over the stereo integrity HS-24.

Yeah my life was going a bit better than it is now. I had 10 000 watts in amplification ready to go then I realized I have to seriously start messing with my house electrical to actually get that sort of wattage. So now I'm doing a different strategy of bring the woofer closer to me rather than try to disturb my neighbors and bring the bass to them.

Which lead me to this fun little project (see attached) (GUESS WHERE I PUT MY HEAD)

 

[kemmler3D]

GUESS WHERE I PUT MY HEAD

 

[Lab_Experiment]

Don't worry I wasn't learning over it like a goof or anything I mounted the thing to some other things I had built with wood that are about 6ft tall and yeah... honestly well it changed my life. I heard more bass in there than I ever have at any club. Yeah I cranked the XLI2500 on two of the subs and the XLI1500 on the other two and it was quite something.

*EDIT* didn't have to disturb my neighbors either it felt like a win win doing that but yeah right there is the motivation for my ear-fi new exploring lol
*EDIT2* yeah now I'm laughing to myself because out of the context of metal or dubstep this probably seems... well the other guy said APA's DSM-III lol

 

[MAB]

2. Can someone elaborate on how amplifiers work at specific wattage ranges. I’ve read posts claiming that all amplifiers sound the same if they’re not clipping, which is BS BS BS BS BS ASR don’t try to pull my leg. People seem negligent that even miliwatt performance can be an important metric for some people.

Welcome to ASR.

You are off to on odd start. Your first post you admit limited knowledge of amps characteristics or function, and say bullshit over and over regarding the sate of observational science on amps. This isn't that forum, you should be able to tell that ahead of time. Please read the room better.
Please read this, and ask yourself if you actually think you could pass a blind test under controlled conditions and actually tell amps apart that aren't broken or driven to distortion.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/do-all-amps-sound-the-same-david-l-clark-ian-g-masters-pdf.287426/

There is even a survey article published by AES, the only amps that people are able to identify are with tube amps oscillating, audible frequency response differences, or outright fudging the stats.:

I have posted on some of the few cases where amps do have audibly different characteristics; noise when hooked up to hyper efficient drivers. But get over your perception that you can actually broadly hear differences in amps.

Reading the rest of your posts, hot mess. You need to read and understand some of the content on ASR more than you can ever imagine. Or perhaps curl up with a good book, something by Floyd Toole would help with your speaker ideas. I don't know how to cure your amp fetish though, you may have to actually go and buy some different amps, subject yourself to some blind testing (tedious, but if you do it right you will discover how your hearing is deceiving you on this amp thing).

And before you quote Benchmark's 'first Watt' test, please understand that John_Siau has finally explained the low power test where they can pass blind tests:

Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

OK, but let's examine it properly, without masking by measuring system noise and without measurement misinterpretation. Below is the 335mW/4ohm. Can you see any hints of crossover distortion?? Audible crossover distortion?? All distortion components above H3 are below 0.0001%, thus below -120dB...

www.audiosciencereview.com

The amp they compared to had large bias drift, creating large crossover distortion, and the test was done with sine tones to further enhance the audibility of the distortion. Even then, PMA posted an amp with dramatic crossover distortion, and you are free to take the test in Foobar to see if you can actually hear.

Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

Here are the plots for the offending amplifier (shown in green on all graphs). The second amplifier used in the ABX test was the AHB2 (shown in red on all graphs). These tests plots were made in 2016. Thank you for the data provided, I appreciate it.

www.audiosciencereview.com

But of course the first link I posted should be clear since it involves Mark Levinson Class A monoblocks and Futterman tube monoblocks (both Holy Grails of amplification), vs. a pioneer receiver. And nobody could tell the difference, and they weren't chumps.