What makes a particular amp sound different from others? Amplifiers all boost the signal, correct?
Many customers assume the goal of all amplifiers are simply to boost the pre-amplified signal as perfect as possible within a given head room (power and current). This could not be further from the truth just as it is not the goal for different speaker brands to recreate the music perfectly. To put our conversation in context, we at Gemstone do not believe that one brand of good wire sounds a whole lot different than another. In fact, we have done double blind tests and came-up not hearing a difference at all (only imagined differences). Unless you have done the tests without knowing what wire is what, do not assume you heard a clear difference. The variations we are about to talk about in the paragraphs below are not theories or folklore, but heard variations. So how can amps sound different? Several amp designs intentionally warm-up or even brighten the sound while others attempt to boost the bottom-end by designing in a strong feedback loop. Others prefer the sound of tubes which ro
