Upgrade or just spending

[Sansiiro]

Hello.


So yesterday I received this Onkyo A-9130 integrated amplifier.

As for now, it has enaugh volume. But it sounds kinda flat.
The vocals are not popping out at all, all the tracks seem similar, like music has no melody and no depth.
So this definately is no upgrade and I am worried.

My only hope is that there may be time needed for the thing to reach it's peak.

Has anyone perhaps experienced this miraculous development of the new amplifier ?
How much time would you give?


Veiko

[graham67]

Hi veiko,

I suspect there will be no transformation. As some of the previous posts mentioned it was unlikely that swapping one cheap amp for another would make much difference.

I know this is probably not what you want to hear but your ears are telling you what some of us suspected would be the case.

i am reminded of the phrase "spend in haste, repent at leisure". Which of course i am still afflicted by 😉

[Sansiiro]

Now. This is evident.
Listening to new amp on the second day, I myself
can say it has been a miraculous development.

For sure I expected improvements comparing it to
TX8220 receiver. Reasons for this were both what the
amp had more (gold on binders, thicker chassis, thicker
(removable) mains inlet, better specs, price, PMB...) and also
what it had less (no radio, no bluetooth, only 4 binders..),
also - Onkyo receivers appear in almost every list,
where they name good options for budget-level, especially
A-9010 (A-9110). Good reviews online, mentions by this
youtube celebrity Steve Guttenberg, the audiophiliac.

Having said all this, I was yet prepared for the amp
to sound only EVER SO SLIGHTLY better than my receiver
TX8220. The thing is, I am only starting out with this,
I have'nt even heard a good system yet, I don't even know,
how good they can get. True, I visited Arvo Pärt
center in Estonia, where they have 22K$ Estelon speakers (see the avatar),
but I can not say it impressed me. Perhaps it is due to the
nature of classical music, or to the fact, that they USED IPAD
for their DAC! I am not even joking. It was easy to listen, but
nothing special. I also listened to my current speakers at the
fancy listening room before I bought them, but also - they did
not impress! I bought them anyway, because Steve Guttenberg was
practicly screaming all over the youtube, that these are the
best thing men ever have made, after the wheel and the plow.
Perhaps this is, as good as it gets, I thought. Later at home,
I learned to love them. I am very pleased at the moment.

Back to the amp - so you can imagine my disappointment, when the
amp did not sound a lot better, not a little-bit better, not the
same, but WORSE than the receiver. On the first day, the sound was
messed up, no base, no highs, no vocals and a noisy mid-range.

While I am no expert, and while in this purchase might have been a
doze of neurosis and obsession, I did not believe I could fail in
such a magnitude. It felt like a robbery.

But having listened to it on the second day, I feel a lot better.
What I could learn even on the first - it has more power, strength, volume
or oomph, as some say. Which of course is a funny thing, hence the receiver
was rated 40 W more.. Yeah, it had that. And I guess the ability to
sound clearer at the lower listening-level. The glimpses of better detail
were also heard. But the second time things had clicked even more. Now it
has depth, the space, it has the highs, the lows and the mid-range is not
like a packed up fridge. I listened to some Zappa, Orbital, Smiths, Jeff Beck,
Marzi Nyman, but only instrumental stuff, sounds funny, but I was afraid to
put vocals on, and ruin my spirits. But the instrumental stuff definately worked,
it was way better. I became very excited. I will of course get to the vocals as
well at one point, and perhaps share a thought.

So weather you can call it a burn-in or a warm-up, you can not
trust the out-of-the-box listening on the first day.


Next stop, I will substitute the wolfson DAC with the Onkyo
NS-6130 separate, after a month. I could do it now, I guess,
but I think I should do it gradually.


Thank you for your time!

Veiko

[Macca]

if you do exactly the opposite of what Steve Guttenberg says then you won't go far wrong...

Seriously though glad you are now happier with the new amplifier.

[AJSki2fly]

Glad you are growing to like it, I am a firm believer that electronics take time to settle down and get to their best operating level, after that its just down hill, no only kokingon the downhill that takes a few years.

Remember all that matters is what you hear and whether you are happy with it or not.MAgazine eviews and other peoples opinions should only be used as a guide in my opinion. Yes they can be valuable from pointing you in the right direction, but reviews especially may be quite biased for all sorts of reasons. Also dealers have a vested interest in getting you to return time and time again, the good old upgrade route. So they are unluckily to let the HiFi Golden Eggs out to the bag early on, especially if there are value for money items, better to get you on the upgrade path and keep you going up the expensive and exotic hifi ladder for as many years as possible. Sorry I know that sounds very cynical I know but sadly probably not too far from the truth, with a few exceptions out there that I know of.

[Pharos]

Adrian, I disagree with this;
"Remember all that matters is what you hear and whether you are happy with it ".

Because IME we can reach a point at which the system is so revealing that it becomes unpleasant. This then confronts us with the question; "Do I want a comfort zone, or to hear all the reality, warts and all".

This is from a write-up on the Gammas:

Professional monitoring loudspeakers
are designed to reveal exactly what's
in a recording, warts and all. Any bad
aspects need to be obvious so that
suitable corrections can be made,
but in the home such a loudspeaker
will usually be unbearable to listen to
after a while, especially with some of
the poor recordings doing the rounds
these days..."

I wrote the following in a discussion with a fellow Hi-Fi friend on my acquisition of ADAM speakers;

They are like my cat, at times lovely and then full of mad surprises and seemingly spontaneous behaviour.
It is very comfortable to be drunk or stoned, or for many, have a fag, and that is what many speakers seem to do by rounding off the unpleasant corners, and they leave one feeling in control – mental comfort zone, no infliction.
These do not, wonderfully unruly like the cat.

[Macca]

Adrian, I disagree with this;
"Remember all that matters is what you hear and whether you are happy with it ".

Because IME we can reach a point at which the system is so revealing that it becomes unpleasant. This then confronts us with the question; "Do I want a comfort zone, or to hear all the reality, warts and all".

.

Given the vast majority of recordings are made on very revealing systems and deliberately made to sound good I have to disagree with this. If the system sounds unpleasant it is due to distortion. I have my doubts about the quality of the amplifiers that are built into some of these active pro monitors. And even if those doubts are unfounded there's still the pre-amplifier to take into account. Most pre-amps are terrible,

[Pharos]

The unruliness is actually not in distortion, they do that less than I have ever heard from any loudspeaker over the last 30 years, it is in dynamic presentation, sudden appearance of parts previously seemingly recessed or non existent.

[Macca]

But that's a good thing isn't it? I agree on some recordings on occasion you can hear how they have stitched them together. But it doesn't make them unpleasant to listen to, at least not for me.

[Pharos]

Yes, but psychologically it is a bit of a curate's egg.

The sense of astonishment which occurs at times leads one to believe that something more is being extracted or 'dug out', and this can be a revelation, but often recordings can sound mundane. This scenario differs from that with perhaps more colored speakers where the coloration can add a sense of presence.

This latter is only tentative, but I think also that coloration can add intelligibility to speech, it often appears in the presence range.

ATM FM, which I have on in the background much of the time varies enormously, and of course my perceptions must include any changes within me, but on occasions it can be very good, and I notice particularly that consistently, vocalists are presented purely, and I cannot see how this can be a result of artefact.

Many years ago I met a guy locally who was also a Hi-Fi fanatic who had ATCs, and he complained that they were too good. I couldn't see how a speaker could be too good at the time, but now see what he may have meant. They were also often described as mechanical sounding.

The accuracy surely must make listening more forensic, and this frame of mind is not conducive to revelling in the art, unless we are sound recording fanatics admiring the work done technically.

I welcome any I/P here.