Preamp difference : if it's not the frequency, not the slew rate, and not the harmonics, what is it ?

[rh001]

I'll add another reply. I've read most of the replies to this post and I noticed the conversation drifted towards the impossibility or near impossibly of knowing what sounds good due to ear physiological variation and differences in taste. Truth is the market does know even if the waters are muddied. The best sounding stuff does stand out but that doesn't mean there is one piece of gear and one musical performance that is the gold standard. There are many that sound really good but of course the majority are second or third rate or worse. And if it could all be measured in the lab then everything would sound great (not considering musical skill) . Oh the vain hopes and dreams of the proliterate....'finally we will get there via empiricism if not through violent struggle!" Cuz see, even if one could test and measure one's way to success in audio electronics still there would be differences in price cuz the components have different costs and even shipping weight has to be factored in. And so unless audiohiles and musicians are Harrison Bergeron'ed there will be differences in price of gear and it is not the case that this group of people are idiots that just imagine they hear differences...better and worse.

They can hear what's better and they will pay more for it. And in the case of audiophiles they will often pay more for style too.

I have no specific answers, like to say it's the distortion or a particular distortion profile, blah blah blah. Only way to getting a grip on this subject matter is do a lot of listening to different gear, including different types...tube, class A discreet transistor, integrated circuits, and different sources...microphones, recorded music, digital recordings, analog recordings. And of course you have to have good ears and good taste or figure out how to develop that so you can tell good from bad. Anyone who says "taste is subjective and individual" is hopeless.

 

[Voyager10]

Wish I knew of a super clean line amp? 🤔

I have no personal experience of this one: https://ka-electronics.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=67 but the claimed tech specs are very good and the design seems sound.

 

[Paul W]

In medicine that's called a differential diagnosis (list of things it could be).
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IIRC both Kahneman and his fellow author Tversky are Jewish, so not really a slight. We have a lot more latitude to make self-deprecatory comments than make the same comments about others.

I certainly didn't mean it as a slight, especially after citing three of my favorite ethnically Jewish Nobel prize winners, who are among my heroes.

When the two Jews / three opinions saying has come up in my presence, it's usually in the context of talking about how Jews are several times as likely as non-Jews to be lawyers, scientists, philosophers, other scholars, etc., and there's a suggestion that maybe has something to do with Jewish culture valuing an ability to analyze things and argue them through. So it's not necessarily self-deprecatory at all... sometimes more wryly humblebragging. (Yeah, we argue a lot, and because of that practice, we're particularly good at it.)

In my own experience it was a revelation in junior high school when I started regularly having dinner at my half-Jewish best friend's house, and we discussed all sorts of things including sex, politics, and religion at the dinner table, and got into many enjoyable arguments that his parents thought were fine and entertaining. That was in stark contrast to dinner at my Christian family's house, where everyone strenuously avoided any conflict, and my Mom would probably have had a stroke if dinner conversation touched on anything remotely controversial and an actual argument broke out. I mentioned that to my friend's parents, and his Jewish lawyer dad joked about the three opinions thing; that was the first time I heard it, but far from the last.

(Of course, like with most stereotypes, there are vast numbers of exceptions. Most Christians aren't as conflict-averse as my family was, and most Jews aren't particularly argumentative, or likely to win a Nobel prize.)