I am surprised I am the first one who takes the honor of teasing a little. I just compared the new beta version of XX with the previeous version. I used the same settings like it is written in my subscription except that I used "no appointment scheme" in both versions because I do not have the activation code for the new one yet.

I try to stay on the floor and not to exaggerate. There is absolutely no bad developement in the sound. The new version realy sounds better in every way. What is the most obvious improvement is the room filling sound. The music floats into the room, sounding bigger with more details but in a natural and pleasent way. It sounds more right. The word describing it best is implicitness or (I got this from leo.org and think it is a nice description) "like a duck takes to water". Whatever you did to the "numbers" stored on my PC that shall become music, it was right. I do not know if there is already something going on but I think you should write a book to make people (and me) understand what it is all about.
Greetings
Adrian

I like to help!
Greetings
Adrian

 

Yes we did

Nice to read Peter and Greg.

Peter, you told your system has "no noise". Does that mean you cannot hear anything even if you put your ear directly at the tweeter? With 110db/W speakers this would be an incredible achievement. I finally got rid of my preamp (...I must find it out myself) and now also the noise is very low but not unhearable. I can hear a noise comming from my tweeter if my ear is 5cm away from it and if just my amplifier is turned on. I can hear a noise up to 15cm away from the tweeter if my dac is turned on too. As it seems to be very important to get the noise down in the system, it would be nice to have a to do list to reduce the noise. Maybe you or Paul could start a thread about this?

One thing disproving one argument of my own: The increase of what I thought was distortion at very low power, smaler than 1W, could be very likely caused by the noise in the THD+N plot. The pure distortion should be smaler with lower output power. So no better performance with low sensitivity speakers here.
The noise is at least less hearable. As the hearable noise should be normaly come from the DAC/Preamp section, the amplifier should be matched by choosing the right amount of gain to fit to the speakers and the DAC.

PS.: Just after i read my post I looked again at the sauermanns distortion figures. The distortion does not increase from 1W to 1mW as far as you can see the figures. It would be nice to see the distortion for lower watt and distortion levels. As far as I know this is unusual and could be the reason for its good sound. This amp should match very well with high efficiency speaker.

The question of the "right" sensitivity of a speaker to fit a certain amplifier is a question I ask myself at the moment. Once I wanted to have very high sensitivity speakers (~100db/w) and planed to use very low powered amps (10w). But the problem with this is, you also amplify the noise of the electronics. Also, the distortions from 1w watt to 1mW normaly increase in a normal amplifier design. So with a very high efficiency speakers you will listen in this "bad" region of your amp. From this point of view, it could be better to have a very high powered amp (500w) and a very low efficiency speakers (80db/w). And all should be matched ideally in a way, that at 0 db at the DACs out, the amp should be short before reaching the region, where it starts to produce an higher level of distiortion. That way you would use the digital volume control at its best. Noise should be very low and distortions at normal listening levels too.

Hi Mani,
1.
K2 is even order Harmonics and k3 and k5 is odd order. That means K2 is two times the basic frequency, k3 three times the basic frequency and so on.

Here is a site where you can calcualte THD from Klirrdämpfung
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/Rechner-klirr.htm

and here is a review of the amp I use which is a similar design (class a, no negative feedback, third order dominated) and delivers similar distortion values.
http://www.jungson.com/files/reviews/ja99c_uk_review.pdf

In the box on the bottom there is a technical interpretation of the measurements, which could be interesting for you.

In comparison to a design which uses negative feedback, k3 is high. But I compared my "old" class a amp to negative feedback designs with lower distortion and finally I kept my old amp. It shows more details and more of the original colors of the instruments. But it can also sound a little hard on high listening levels. I like it.

Greetings
Flecko

Here is a review of this amp...in German:
http://www.fairaudio.de/test/endstufe/2011/test-sauermann-verstaerker-stereo-endstufe-1.html

And there is another German amplifier builder following a similar path but is more affordable:
http://www.valvet.de/blocks_A35%20gb.html

Reading this, I am happy not having bought a new amp yet. Peter, have you meassured the high power distortion level of the amp or is there any information? I would need the whole 50W for sure.

I think this kind of perception change is totaly normal for an hi(gh)-fi addict (as we all are)
After I made some significant improvement of my PC-Playback I found again, xxhe is the best sounding player. But perception of things changed again too....also have a theory about that but I will tell more later...
I am very curious about yor findings!

PS.: Both suggestions are compromises. In Juans suggestion the speaker are too close to the sidewalls and maybe too close together.  Also the room is "damaged" by placing the seat in the middle of it. But as Juan mentioned, in my suggestion the seat and the speakers are too close to the backwalls.

Ok, that explains a lot. You are much too far away from your speakers. Everything should sound better if you change the position of your listening chair closer to the speakers, not only the bass. You have no direct sound there. You are listening to reflections only.

If I may suggest a position...

Thanks for the explaination. I realy would have guessed on the electronics but there are many undiscovered worlds to discover as it seems...maybe I have to try the gain clones too...but for now, a chord spm 650 it will be

Anyway, what a strange room you must have

I would interprete this as an indication to blame the electronics. If the PMC's normaly have bass and on your system have no bass, it could be the room BUT in my book it should be the amplification. Do you have the possibility to try an amp with more power and an higher damping factor? Maybe a good preamp too?  Even if the AudioNote would have these fantastic specs, the bass (8" speaker) still has to be controled and therefore  a higher damping factor could help.


And its me, Flecko