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I have wondered why Axioms price point has been set so high when Alan has said repeatedly that in double blind test he couldn't hear a difference in various amps. Seeing how all amps sound the same it seems to be a waste of money. How is the nay Sayers going to justify recommending such a high price amp?



Hi Wid and all,

I must qualify my statement about "all amplifiers sounding the same" (as I always do) by saying the following: In the case of transistor amplifiers, a properly designed amplifier has no sound of its own--provided that it has smooth, flat frequency response, low distortion, and is not driven into clipping. It's surprisingly easy to drive solid-state moderately-powered (100 watts per channel or less into 8 ohms) amplifiers into clipping with musical material that you would otherwise not expect to demand all that much power output.

At the recent Home Theater & Hi-Fi show in New York, I ran into an old friend, Peter Aczel, the founder, editor and publisher of The Audio Critic ( www.theaudiocritic.com ) which I unhesitatingly recommend to everyone interested in truth about sound reproduction and electronics, plus highly entertaining and provocative commentary on the delusional beliefs of high-end tweaks.

Like me, Peter Aczel came from a high-end belief system and discovered, through many years of double-blind testing and using A/B and A/B/X switching comparators, that smoke and mirrors, snake oil and hokum are awfully prevalent in high-end circles, the promotion of the products, and the magazines that cater to the tweako industry.

Here is how Peter Aczel states it: "It is impossible for two amplifiers to sound different at matched levels if each has high input impedance, low output impedance, flat frequency response, low distortion, low noise floor, and is not clipped." Amen.

I have not A/B'd the Axiom power amplifier so far, but I can tell you that its design goals were to develop a highly efficient no-compromise extremely powerful amplifier capable of driving multiple lower-impedance loads without overheating, shut-down, individual channel failures and the like, and to do so without the owner ever worrying that the amp might be clipping or running out of dynamic headroom. To do so costs plenty. There are no short cuts.

If amplifiers are driven into clipping or near-clipping as the "knee" of the distortion curve begins to rapidly rise, then of course they will sound different, compared to one that has tons of clean power and dynamic headroom. (More on solid-state amplifiers and tubes in the upcoming newsletter.)

Regards,

Alan Lofft,
Axiom Resident Expert (Retired)