There is nothing wrong with SINAD chasing

[Mort]

Y'all get amps that exceed usage, stream at higher bit rates than audible but somehow 'Sinad chasing' is an epithet.

If I want 100db SINAD, that deserves no worse criticism than buying 500w mono bloicks.

 

[kharan]

What about SINAD chasing for speakers? I read that anything below 1% is inaudible.

 

[MarkS]

There's nothing wrong with chasing SINAD, as long as you understand that it has no impact on the sound that you hear, once it is below human-hearing thresholds that almost all modern electronics easily meet.

I wish @amirm would be clearer about this. I'm not fond of this color-coded chart, which I believe misleads many into believing that devices in the red would sound bad. They do not. They are sonically indistinguishable from the best of the blue.

 

[egellings]

Once SINAD gets so good that an improvement in it is no longer audible, then why bother? Stop running. You've crossed the finish line. The race is over.

 

[dfuller]

What about SINAD chasing for speakers? I read that anything below 1% is inaudible.

Honestly, speakers are the only point in the entire chain where reducing nonlinear distortion can still actually have a meaningful impact on perceived quality. And considering we're getting to speakers that approach electronics-levels of distortion...

 

[Chagall]

It’s like buying a gaming mouse by maximum DPI instead of switch quality, weight, button layout, grip or ergonomics and upgrading it every time a bigger "better" number comes out expecting better aim...

 

[popej]

SINAD combines noise and distortion, which makes quite difficult to determine, if a given value could lead to audible problems. I think values above about 70dB are good, we shouldn't get audible problems, and ranking becomes meaningless. Below 70 we can't estimate audibility directly and ranking is rather random.

I think there is no single parameter, which can describe audio quality. We need to see multiple measurements and characteristics to make an assessment. I appreciate ASR reviews, but I don't care about rankings.

 

[kharan]

Honestly, speakers are the only point in the entire chain where reducing nonlinear distortion can still actually have a meaningful impact on perceived quality. And considering we're getting to speakers that approach electronics-levels of distortion...

Ehh, the best speakers are maybe -75 dB THD in limited frequency bands at lower SPLs, in general -50 dB is good and even -40 dB is decent enough, it is even considered very good if it's over a large frequency band at SPL. Any electronics that isn't tube based is better than that. I wouldn't say we're approaching electronics levels of distortion.

With the caveat that electronics sometimes need more SINAD to account for gain staging whereas speakers are the end point of the chain.

 

[oleg87]

I don't really agree, and I think ASR's focus on this dubiously valuable metric for audio electronics does a disservice to its readership. I think measured performance should be as high as can be *without* compromising something else, but ultimately, it's always a matter of tradeoffs. At best, it's likely more expensive than the simpler solution that sounds identical. At worst, companies getting too clever to reach the leftmost reaches of Amir's charts could compromise reliability, safety, stability, etc.

 

[Oddball]

SINAD is part of the puzzle though. Even offenders sometimes get pardon. Not sure what is the fuss about it as it has been beaten down like thousands of times.

My favorite offender for 15 years now - have 5 of them and in love from the first day.

Rotel RB-1070 Amplifier Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Rotel RB-1070 stereo power amplifier. It was released in early 2000. Can't find the cost then but I see it used for around $400 to $500. I have always found Rotels to be most attractively designed power amplifiers. One look at that front panel...

www.audiosciencereview.com

For ones that feel like they have more to hear - Kippel test might do. Not perfect but sufficiently good to keep golden ears from imagining greater things.

Listening Test

www.klippel.de

 

[Oddball]

Y'all get amps that exceed usage, steam at higher bit rates than audible but somehow 'Sinad chasing' is an epithet.

If I want 100db SINAD, that deserves no worse criticism than buying 500w mono oblicks.

That is so true but best way to get around 500W power block is to try them out. Hopefully people that believe in so much power will choose an amp that can do that in bridge mode so they can actually use it after their failed experiment is done.

I can bridge from 300W to 1kW, but really does not do a thing. I can't even hear the increased distortion, but neither any associated benefits with the Watts. The amp does get hot at that point so overall not a good thing.

 

[amirm]

I wish @amirm would be clearer about this.

I am very clear. Noise is audible at lower level than members say is inaudible. And as I have explained repeatedly, in almost all high SINAD products, it is noise that dominates SINAD, not distortion. Your comment reminds me of a technical reviewer reaching out to me, surprised that even a well measuring amplifier had noise coming out of the tweeter of his speakers. To get silence there, you need to be way up the SINAD chart than commonly stated levels here. I have done an entire video on this topic:

Besides, in most cases, you don't pay extra for higher SINAD. It comes for free when the design is highly optimized. It need not have a lot of extra parts to get there. Just good engineering and that is what I promote.

 

[amirm]

I'm not fond of this color-coded chart, which I believe misleads many into believing that devices in the red would sound bad.

The products in red are very poorly engineered yet, offer no discount for that privilege. A number of them have audible distortion levels which I have stated in reviews with listening tests. There is absolutely no reason to purchase anything from that category.

 

[amirm]

I think measured performance should be as high as can be *without* compromising something else, but ultimately, it's always a matter of tradeoffs.

Show me those trade offs. In my AES paper and presentation, I showed how an $80 DAC wipes the floor with SINAD of products at all price levels. Other than speakers, getting low noise and distortion comes with little or any premium.

Remember, many people here use electronics to drive headphones that block outside noise and are capable of rending even slightest amount of noise. So don't go to the myth of "your room has this many dBs of noise so none of this matters."

Now, speakers are a different matter and hence there is no SINAD for them. But electronics? There is no reason to build products that are not in upper tier of products tested. Failing that almost entirely comes from poor engineering or catering to audiophile myths such as no feedback, tubes, etc.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

There is absolutely no reason to purchase anything from that category.

what if they look super cool? or have a particularly desirable or practical form factor? or are extremely durable or portable? or have specific and uncommon features? or are sold on the secondary market at deep discount? or your uncle just gave them to you? or they're available without import duty in the country in which you live? or or or.

(to be clear, I'm not arguing with your audibility or value claims, but with your dicto simpliciter)

 

[Oddball]

I am very clear. Noise is audible at lower level than members say is inaudible. And as I have explained repeatedly, in almost all high SINAD products, it is noise that dominates SINAD, not distortion. Your comment reminds me of a technical reviewer reaching out to me, surprised that even a well measuring amplifier had noise coming out of the tweeter of his speakers. To get silence there, you need to be way up the SINAD chart than commonly stated levels here. I have done an entire video on this topic:

Besides, in most cases, you don't pay extra for higher SINAD. It comes for free when the design is highly optimized. It need not have a lot of extra parts to get there. Just good engineering and that is what I promote.

I fell very confident in your review of Rotel 1070. It is a borderline case that still makes it. Tired Storm amps instead that measure much better, and have some 70W up, but could not hear a thing that would make them better. Did not measure as Storm loan was shorter term that I wanted to be. That is for surrounds, but still a point to make.

 

[amirm]

I can bridge from 300W to 1kW, but really does not do a thing. I can't even hear the increased distortion, but neither any associated benefits with the Watts.

This is neither here, nor there. My monoblock amplifiers clock at nearly 1000 watts yet with my Revel Salon 2 amps, I have a few times run out of power by cranking the volume to max! Yes, it was incredibly loud then, but also very enjoyable until I drove my wife and dogs out of the floor of our house.

The trend today is lower and lower sensitivity speakers as enclosures have become smaller and smaller as to fit in the style of homes today. This is not going away. Nor can one's judgement of how loud they listen translate to another person.

And let's remember that doubling power from 25 to 50 watts is no big deal but getting the same doubling with a 500 watt amp pushes you to 1000 watts! This is why you get a lot of loudness and low to medium level powers but higher SPLs require incredible amount of wattage and speakers that can handle them. For this reason, every time someone asks me if this amp will be loud enough with that speaker, I say I don't know how to answer that *for them*.

 

[amirm]

I fell very confident in your review of Rotel 1070. It is a borderline case that still makes it. Tired Storm amps instead that measure much better, and have some 70W up, but could not hear a thing that would make them better. Did not measure as Storm loan was shorter term that I wanted to be.

I don't know how you perform your listening tests. I have specific tracks I use to bring out such distortions and follow specific protocol to detect distortion. Just listening to speakers with ad-hoc content and style is not going to result in any critical data to come forward. Clearly there are easy cases and hard ones. I use hard ones because I want to represent everyone's need, not what would be good enough for some or even many.

 

[amirm]

what if they look super cool? or have a particularly desirable or practical form factor? or are extremely durable or portable? or have specific and uncommon features? or are sold on the secondary market at deep discount? or your uncle just gave them to you? or they're available without import duty in the country in which you live? or or or.

Then buy them. My reviews are not order to follow. Personally I bought my super expensive monoblocks because of that look and who made them (in addition to how powerful they are). If I were to do it, I would buy some boring looking amps at a faction of price and just hide them in the cabinet. FYI, both of those 110 pound monoblocks have failed and I am told to ship them to some random repair shop in Texas by this American company. I can just imagine the shipping cost alone being $1,000 and repair in multiples of thousands of dollars. So it is not all roses buying such gear in US from American companies.

 

[oleg87]

Show me those trade offs. In my AES paper and presentation, I showed how an $80 DAC wipes the floor with SINAD of products at all price levels. Other than speakers, getting low noise and distortion comes with little or any premium.

Remember, many people here use electronics to drive headphones that block outside noise and are capable of rending even slightest amount of noise. So don't go to the myth of "your room has this many dBs of noise so none of this matters."

Now, speakers are a different matter and hence there is no SINAD for them. But electronics? There is no reason to build products that are not in upper tier of products tested. Failing that almost entirely comes from poor engineering or catering to audiophile myths such as no feedback, tubes, etc.

Well let's take the example of one of Topping amps, can't recall the model - they potted the amp circuits, presumably in an attempt to hinder their competitors from reverse-engineering their clever circuits, and from my understanding of the failure mode, this caused them to overheat and fail. AC coupling is of course among the biggest no-no's in hi-fi but it would have saved quite a few headphones from highly-performant Schiit Heresies's blown output stages over the years.

To be clear, I'm not claiming higher performance implementation *necessarily* entails compromises elsewhere, but I don't think it's a noteworthy achievement to gratuitously clear any sane audibility threshold. I'm more impressed when something is polished, usable, reliable, etc.