Perhaps this is one way to explain why low-power, all-tube, all-Class-A amplifiers are often perceived to sound more “musical” than huge, solid-state, “mega-kilowatt,” machined-aluminum monsters that are competing for the same piles of money.

Or maybe it’s other, psychological factors, such as the idea that tube amplifiers replaced the hearth in the home as a centerpiece around which to congregate…

Or perhaps it’s a result of something that is more easily quantified.

Class-A amplifiers distort differently from other designs. Not only this, but by running “wide open” in some cases, there’s more power available for short-term small-scale dynamic changes such as transient information.

It can be easily shown that although two systems may have the same signal-to-noise ratio and the same distortion figures on an analyzer, they sound radically different. The spectra of the noise, and the character of the distortion, play huge roles in perceived sound quality.

So again, the challenging question about quantifying performance in audio systems is what to measure in the first place, and how to measure it.

Getting Along

The bottom line is that both camps have something very important to offer. Without a scientific approach, we’d be stabbing in the dark trying to find solutions to problems about which we know very little.

But without a reliance on the subjective experience, even our most clever inventions would perhaps never reach the level of “art.”  What good can come of setting fire to a silk-screened portrait of Andy Warhol in the middle of the woods if there’s no one present to snicker?

Designers and sound system users make decisions every day based on whatever they have at their disposal, including theory, available equipment, testing and measurement, intuition, and finally, critical listening. If there is not a balance among these resources, the results are likely to be unbalanced.

How would you like some power amps with “DC to light” response but producing crappy sound? Care for some loudspeakers that sound amazing but look like a “Dogs Playing Poker” on black velvet? How about mics that can pick up a gnat burping but make a Stradivarius sound like a banjo bowed with rosined fishing line?

Let’s leave it to the great Duke Ellington: “If it sounds good, it is good.”