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      01-06-2021, 10:17 AM   #27
naywa01
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MelbourneFinn View Post
What really surprised me was that the Mosconi amp is only rated as 6x60 W, but that comes without practically any distortion. I don't think I have ever turned the volume up to higher than half - after that I'd need to run out from the car as it would be just too loud, but still completely distortion free and clear.

You need a good sound source, though, as with that quality the source makes a huge difference.
Sound 'quality' is an emotive and subjective thing and this is a bit off-topic, but I felt compelled to comment.

I used to have a setup of somewhat high end hi-fi separates at home (which unfortunately I no longer have) and what you've said about your amp is a bit of a 'truism' of good equipment.

My lovely Exposure Super 15 amp was 'only' rated at 50 watts per channel (this is only a stereo amp, not multi-channel), so would probably be considered vastly underpowered by most car hi-fi nuts!

The thing is (like so many things in life) it's not what you have, but what you do with it that counts! The aforementioned Exposure amp had a whacking great big hand-wound transformer (mounted in one corner, so you had to be careful picking it up), which meant PLENTY of clean *current* supply to very high quality output stages.

It also had a relatively simple circuit design to the point it didn't even have a headphone socket. However it could go pretty loud (a bit like your comment about having to move away if I got too ambitious with the volume knob!) and the results combined with my Ruark Talisman II speakers was SO satisfying. So in short, watts are not everything and are a blunt tool in terms of trying to classify system performance.

If you have sensitive speakers with good signal-to-noise (remember the lower the impedance, the higher the current draw) with a well designed amp and top quality sources, then you don't need 1000 watts to 'go loud' or to have high 'quality'. Obviously even if you do have something rated at 1000 watts its no guarantee it will sound good, if the power supply is not good you might get 'clipping' and/or more distortion, then if its really poorly designed it might overheat and go into thermal protect before it runs out of Amps.

As you rightly said the source is clearly a big factor too and I was interested to read another comment regarding "superior CD" as a source. Some of those into their vinyl will contest, but CD is ok to a point, but the quality is subject to multitude of factors including:

1) The read/decode point - so cheap CD transports with cheap DAC have an effect on sound 'quality'. Hence why I spent a lot of money on a CD player and why some will have a CD transport with separate DAC to reduce electronic inteference across circuitry and PSUs.

2) Add to point 1 that the read accuracy will affect the 'quality'. So this can be the electronics, but also the mechanical aspects such as the CD transport. This is because read accuracy will impact the error/error correction rate and 'jitter' (effectively signal timing errors), simply put the more of these two are present, the worse your source signal will be and your output deteriorates. So needless to say, its very doubtful anything you're going to get in a car is going to be at the top end of the quality scale (as per point 1) and will be mechanically affected by the environment it finds itself installed in (i.e. you will likely be getting both higher error rates and jitter in a car CD system influenced by stiff suspension over poor roads, combined with lower end reading/decoding/output circuitry to handle it).


3) 'CD quality' (16-bit/44KHz) audio is obviously better than 'lossy' compressed formats, particularly such as low bitrate (<256kbps) MP3, but can no longer be considered an ultimate even if you ignore factors 1 & 2. Someone else mentioned they use Tidal MQA (their proprietary high bitrate, lossless format), this is really where you want to be for 'studio quality' source material nowadays. Look at lossless high *sample* rate material, high bitrate (e.g. 96KHz and above) is another factor, but note that some 'hi-res' formats using single-bit (versus multi-bit, e.g. 24-bit) encoding, these include formats such as FLAC, DSD and others.

With the best will in the world, even with the latest devices, Bluetooth ain't going to cut it for the best music reproduction (even Apple Airplay/wireless CarPlay will introduce transcoding/compression).

So obviously you have to have a device and system that can accept & play these formats (without having to do intermediary transcoding; like if you play hi-bitrate stuff on a smartphone which then has to be downsampled because the output stage doesn't support it), but if you get the right combination of source material, device & DAC you'll give your amp and speakers a fighting chance of doing a decent job.

All these factors affect not just distortion (which is mainly what you'll perceive in the end results as 'quality'), but the level of detail that is available to recreate in the first place (i.e. you can't make up what's not there), plus the 'dynamics' (difference between loud and quiet sections).

The most glaring factor above all of these is that cars are a 'hostile' environment for high quality audio reproduction at the best of times, with the oddly angled glass surfaces, imperfect listening positions, engine/wind/road noise (not so much an issue in a Rolls-Royce, but definitely in my F82!) etc etc.

Anyyway quite a ramble, but if anyone is interested, my two pennies/cents on audio 'quality'

Last edited by naywa01; 01-06-2021 at 10:30 AM..
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