I believe that all properly designed amps (pretty much anything you buy today), running within their limits, will sound identical to each other. This has been scientifically proven in various ABX testing, from professionally held sessions such as
this one - where Ian Masters indicates the amps ranged from $200 mass-market types to $12,000 tube monoblocks – to in-home tests such as the one from a recent board member, where a mini-system was compared to a mid-end receiver driving Axiom M80s. I remember reading about an audio dealer, from California I believe, who offered $10,000 to anyone who could consistently pick out a ‘better’ amplifier from a blind ABX held at his shop. Of course, nobody ever took home the prize. Unfortunately, I could not find a link to it with a quick Google search; however, I did find
this one which is a similar set-up offering $10,000 to anyone who can pick out the ‘better’ car amplifier. To those who think that perhaps Science cannot measure everything that affects the music reproduction in an amp, I simply ask: how does one design something
more musical if they don’t know how to measure it, or what to look for?
