Power Amplifiers Rated By The Martin Colloms Scoring System

[User211]

Hm... we're all so negative about reviewer's ratings and marks. Hi-Fi News currently mark gear out of 20. But when you see a £150 project turntable get 18/20, you really have to wonder. That included an arm and a budget cart. This happened this month.

So we lose faith. But then faith jaded, we continue to read and try to form some idea about what kit sounds like from a review. We simply can't write it all off as irrelevant - or can we?

I think the ratings list produced by MC is relevant to an extent. Surely, there is no harm in using it to draw up a short list of things to listen to. After all, you have to start from somewhere.

If we totally ignore the numbers, and read the CLS review, what do people who have heard the CLS think of it? Chris (C.A.P), do you think it's a fair and accurate assessment of the speaker? Jeff, what do you think? Anyone with CLSs?

I've never heard the CLS (gulp!). But I think that review is excellent and I tend to believe what he says is "about right". Am I wrong? After all, I have no reason based on experience to believe it isn't, apart from experience wth other MLs.

BTW: if you see me post, wait for 5 minutes before you answer - I am always editing the blinking things! Yeah, I know I should write in Word and use the spell checker... then copy it into the post. Seems like too much hassle, though.

 

[C.A.P]

Chris (C.A.P), do you think it's a fair and accurate assessment of the speaker? Jeff, what do you think? Anyone with CLSs?

I've never heard the CLS (gulp!). But I think that review is excellent and I tend to believe what he says is "about right". Am I wrong? After all, I have no reason based on experience to believe it isn't, apart from experience wth other MLs.

The CLS review has some merit; However I would not consider it the whole picture.. Room set up is KEY and we have learned a lot since that review. The bass is always a concern for many. In the right room its damn good. The amps that run the CLS are key. SS will give the needed bass ! Tubes can be a bit softer and warmer to some.


To bass an opinion on a review without ever hearing them is a bit pretentious . The CLS sound is distinctly DIFFERENT than any martin Logan Hybrid. Is it for every one? NOPE! Can it do magical things that many cant? YES!

This is a direct quote from a review.(You will like this one Justin. A highly respected custom installer in the Los Angeles area said once of the CLS’ (he owned 3 pairs over the years) that “with the right tube amp and the lights dimmed, you could actually see god in your living room.”
http://www.avrev.com/home-theater-n...all-on-legendary-martinlogan-cls-speaker.html

Many a review has spurned many a sale ! However; That doesn't mean its as good as they say. How many sleeper products that have not been reviewed have blown away their pears away. As Roberto has always said. "Listen to your Ears"

 

[Cherian]

Reviews and ratings to me are just tools I use to look in a direction. I do not make a purchasing decision based on a review or rating. With so much equipment to choose from it is impossible for me to listen to everything. I use reviews or ratings to focus my search. In the end it is my ears, heart and wallet that makes the decision.

Having looked at the list I cannot disagree with his CJ bias.

 

[Rich]

I think the ratings list produced by MC is relevant to an extent. Surely, there is no harm in using it to draw up a short list of things to listen to. After all, you have to start from somewhere.

OK, I'll call your bluff on that one. How, exactly, would you use these "ratings" to come up with a short list? Do you pick the top five, and audition two Krells, a CJ, an Audio Note and a Karan? Or do you pick the top ten and audition six Krells, a CJ, an Audio Note, a Karan, and a Cary? (See where I am going with this?) Or do you just look at the big list of names and pick different manufacturers that you know you like and try to pick out certain amps by them that are on the list (in which case, the "ratings" are really kind of meaningless to your choices). And as has been noted above, picking your short list off of this list will leave you missing out on some incredible possibilities, like Pass Labs, BAT, VTL, etc.

Alright, I have beaten this dead horse enough.

 

[David Matz]

This is a great discussion. Some of the questions I have are:

Is some of the gear made to sound outstanding in any system, such that balancing lean/ warm components, etc., is not necessary? I can think of 3 brands that strive to remove all sonic signature and have the equipment get out of the way of the music: Ayre, CJ, and LAMM. What others have you heard that sound great with anything?
<O</O
In arts there are folks who can take a look at a painting or a sculpture and tell if a 2,000 or 500 year old piece is a fake or how great of a work of art it is. Putting the numerical ratings aside for the moment, are we willing to accept that there are some individuals out there that can put aside their personal tastes, and recommend truly outstanding gear? Are there folks in this field, experts in a sense, who have developed over a long period of time of listening - to both live music and reproduced music, an insanely refined capability to powerfully identify and connect with the music, and thus recommend equipment based on this knowledge? Tonepub, Jon Valin, Fremer, and Ken Kessler come to mind to me. What do you guys think?

 

[User211]

OK, I'll call your bluff on that one. How, exactly, would you use these "ratings" to come up with a short list? Do you pick the top five, and audition two Krells, a CJ, an Audio Note and a Karan? Or do you pick the top ten and audition six Krells, a CJ, an Audio Note, a Karan, and a Cary? (See where I am going with this?) Or do you just look at the big list of names and pick different manufacturers that you know you like and try to pick out certain amps by them that are on the list (in which case, the "ratings" are really kind of meaningless to your choices). And as has been noted above, picking your short list off of this list will leave you missing out on some incredible possibilities, like Pass Labs, BAT, VTL, etc.

Alright, I have beaten this dead horse enough.

Dead horse? Man (hm - that's a bit too American for a Brit, no?), we've only just begun!

You could treat that list in the following manner:

1) You could ignore it because you have bought MC recommended gear in the past. I owned an Audio Synthesis DAX-2, which he thought was amazing. Given the right material, it was impressive, but "across the board", I think it sucked pretty badly, sounding pretty awful with some material. Therefore, you could conclude you don't like his taste. But it isn't that simple - he has liked stuff I have liked too. Not much though. Ken K likes gear I like to a much greater extent.

2) You could calculate price/performance ratios using the numbers for gear in your price range, then go out an audition some, or go the 'gon/ebay route, as some of it is very long in the tooth.

3) You could use 2), and track down his original reviews, the read them, believe him and make a choice. You might get lucky this way, but I doubt it.

4) You could get technical. examine the circuits of the top rated amps, then conclude the easiest to build is the top rated tube amp. You could then fine tune it until it does what you like sonically, by changing tubes, swapping caps, changing resistors etc, all of which have very significant effects on SQ.

5) etc etc etc - 1,000,001 ways to skin a cat.

Or - you could take a step back and throw the stats away and ask yourself - "what value do reviews really hold."?

Now this is the real question I'd like to explore. David has just hinted on it. Maybe it should be a new thread.

Rich - you read reviews. You just read the Sennheiser one. What did you learn from it? Do you know who reviewed it and therefore feel you have some trust in it? Or is the review pointless for SQ assessment but valuable for other reasons? But most importantly, is Jeff wasting his time as far as you are concerned!

David - I like KK more than any other reviewer. And he has great hi-fi history knowledge and appreciates pedigree. The man likes hi-fi.

From MCs point of view, I believe he is trying to do one thing. And this is surely the reviewers goal. He is trying to tell you which component he thinks sounds best. And all we have done is slag him off for it... in a sense, that's pretty sad. After all, it is his life's work! Whether we agree with the ratings or not, we should at least respect him for trying.

 

[Dougster]

I have great respect for Martin Colloms from his early days at Audio T in London. I think the Numerical Scale and the CLS review highlight his strengths and weaknesses. Having heard CLSs working well I think he describes their strengths and weaknesses with great eloquence. Is this accurate? How do I know?
I think a parallel with the art critic or film reviewer is educative here. I guess we all use a similar process wherein we test a review and we compare our own opinion after say, seeing the same film. If our opinion and especially our enjoyment of the film are markedly at odds with said review we are unlikely to follow said reviewer in future except perhaps to avoid films the reviewer recommends. Without this validation of our own opinion by hearing the same or at least some of the same equipment as the reviewer we are taking a gamble if we blindly follow his (her!!!?) advice. We clearly need to be evaluating the reviewer over time in order to have any faith in the opinions.

Regards the numerical scale Martin is committed to objectivity to the extent that he now writes for Hi Fi Critic an independent publication free from advertising bias as it is subscription only. Unfortunately the publication is rather dry and to me less entertaining for being advert free. He has attempted to revive his numerical system and to explain how the one dimensional number is a composite of other parameters he considers when scoring products. Unfortunately it is of little value to me as the range of products is limited to his old favourites of AR Krell and CJ , but again if we ourselves have heard some of the products may it also not prick our interest in exploring others he rates higher? Might it also have benefit in reminding us of old products that scored highly and perhaps should be revisited?
Get to know your reviewer, consider their thoughts and reviews and ratings ..but you must hear the equipment yourself, and at home in your system if at all possible.

 

[Rich]

Or - you could take a step back and throw the stats away and ask yourself - "what value do reviews really hold."?

Now this is the real question I'd like to explore. David has just hinted on it. Maybe it should be a new thread.

Rich - you read reviews. You just read the Sennheiser one. What did you learn from it? Do you know who reviewed it and therefore feel you have some trust in it? Or is the review pointless for SQ assessment but valuable for other reasons? But most importantly, is Jeff wasting his time as far as you are concerned!

I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. Reviews are rather pointless to me for sound quality assessment, but useful for other stuff like learning about design and function of the piece of equipment, and also for just getting exposure to pieces of equipment I might otherwise not think to investigate. If I happen to know my tastes converge with those of the reviewer, I might take a little more of his subjective recollection of the sound of the piece into account. But only to decide whether to audition the gear.

The Sennheiser review, for instance, piqued my interest in listening to these phones, but didn't really tell me anything about how they sound.

 

[User211]

This is a direct quote from a review.(You will like this one Justin. A highly respected custom installer in the Los Angeles area said once of the CLS’ (he owned 3 pairs over the years) that “with the right tube amp and the lights dimmed, you could actually see god in your living room.”
http://www.avrev.com/home-theater-n...all-on-legendary-martinlogan-cls-speaker.html

Chris - he was lying. See God - no way - I'd have bought a pair. Hear God - same applies, I guess...

Of course, if you own ML Statements or the big MBLs, God will talk to you concerning upgrades to his Summit based system. He's a bit broke right now with the recession and everything...

 

[User211]

I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. Reviews are rather pointless to me for sound quality assessment, but useful for other stuff like learning about design and function of the piece of equipment, and also for just getting exposure to pieces of equipment I might otherwise not think to investigate. If I happen to know my tastes converge with those of the reviewer, I might take a little more of his subjective recollection of the sound of the piece into account. But only to decide whether to audition the gear.

The Sennheiser review, for instance, piqued my interest in listening to these phones, but didn't really tell me anything about how they sound.

Then surely Stereophile, HFN, Hi-Fi Plus etc are guilty of providing too much attention to descriptions of how things sound. And to an extent, they can say what they like, since they can just claim "subjectivism" and "that's what I heard".

I once read a testament from an ex-Hi-Fi reviewer, saying he never used to listen to the kit, and just dreamed up the descriptions...

Newcomers will tend to believe reviews, but maybe that's the wrong way of putting it. They'll just dream up something in their heads about how something sounds based on the prose, and buy blind based on the description and the numbered rating. It can take them a long time and a lot of money later before they realise its not the way to do it. Many will give up Hi-Fi as a hobby as a result - much of it ending up on the auction sites, I guess.

But I'd argue you WILL be influenced by a description, Rich. Would an item make your shortlist of things to listen to if the reviewer said it sounded terrible? I think not.

I get a bit brainwashed by it sometimes too... it's just impossible not to get influenced by it.

 

[Rich]

That's a trick question. Since when do reviewers reveal that a piece of gear sounds terrible?

You are correct that it is difficult to not be influenced by a reviewer's description of a piece of gear. I would definitely ignore it and audition a piece the reviewer said sounded like crap if I already had other reasons I wanted to audition that piece. The more difficult issue comes in if I read a review that I had no other knowledge of the piece and the reviewer said it sounded like crap. Would I specifically avoid considering that piece simply because of what the reviewer said? Who knows? Possibly, I suppose.

But honestly, the gear I audition is more limited by availability than anything else. If it is available within a few hundred miles and it is in my price range, chances are I will at least give it a listen regardless of what anyone else says about it.

 

[User211]

That's a trick question. Since when do reviewers reveal that a piece of gear sounds terrible?

Stereophile never does. But Hi-Fi News actually does from time to time knock out average ratings and reviews - shock, horror

Within a few hundred miles? Wow - you can't be more than 70 odd miles from the coast in this country.

 

[David Matz]

That's a trick question. Since when do reviewers reveal that a piece of gear sounds terrible?

But honestly, the gear I audition is more limited by availability than anything else. If it is available within a few hundred miles and it is in my price range, chances are I will at least give it a listen regardless of what anyone else says about it.

Strangely, Wayne Garcia wrote a scathing review of a Plinius amp that is owned by many Logan owners (and other speaker owners), including some on this site. He said something to the effect that it did not get out of the way of the music. Dealers did not believe the review, bought the amp, and demoed it. People still bought it despite the review.

I wonder whether the dealers read the reviews when they buy demo pieces. Or maybe it is forced by the contracts they sign with the manufacturers.