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RE: Question for all industry Insiders

I would have to disagree with that assessment of the Benchmark.

Some people like a warm or euphonic sound -- and all power to them. But I personally find it fatiguing, like listening to maple syrup.

What I personally prefer in an amp is liquidity and lucidity -- transparency -- an amp that adds as little audible distortion as possible, and only goes for euphonics insofar as some distortion is inevitable and it's best to choose an audibly pleasing compromise (low-order rather than high order harmonic distortion, etc.).

I think this is very different from the clean but sterile sound I associate with the studio, with its relatively dry acoustic. We're talking about a different phenomenon in that case, control of listening room reverberation, which colors the sound but is unfortunately necessary to the satisfying reproduction of two-channel stereo. In the studio, it's important to hear what's in the feed or on the tape; at home, most prefer to relax things a bit to emulate some of the spaciousness that's missing in a two-channel recording.

I suppose you could say that we're talking distortion in both cases, but euphonic distortion in an amplifier isn't for the most part necessary, while in two-channel stereo, a certain amount of listening room reverberation is.


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  • RE: Question for all industry Insiders - josh358 11/22/1717:24:53 11/22/17 (0)

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