February 14, 2005

As a beginner, I am interested in building a hi-fi system mainly for listening to stereo music -- classical, jazz and vocals. I am looking for a decent stereo integrated amplifier because I believe that a stereo integrated of the same power and price is by all means better than a multichannel receiver. If both cost, say, $500, then the stereo amplifier costs $250 per channel whereas for 5.1 receiver is is less than $100. Please correct me if I am wrong with this simple approach.

However, currently there are so many receivers on the market, and it is hard to find a good stereo integrated amplifier. What I am concerned and surprised about is that most stereo integrateds have poor specs compared to those of receivers. For example, S/N ratio for most receivers from Denon or Onkyo is more than 100dB, while stereo amplifiers have this ratio slightly above 80dB. How could that be, or am I missing something? Q: What are the key characteristics I should be looking for while shopping for a stereo integrated amplifier?

Konstantin Timokhin

A: What you say about similarly priced stereo integrated amplifiers versus multichannel receivers generally holds true, particularly if two products are from the same company and one has to provide two channels of power versus, say, five channels. At the same price, a manufacturer can build a more sophisticated design and use better-quality parts for a two-channel unit. Such logic may not hold true, though, when you compare one company's products against those of another. Not all companies have the same manufacturing resources and design expertise. As a result, some companies can produce better-quality multichannel receivers than other companies building simpler integrated amplifiers. This is due to economies of scale and engineering know-how, and it's exactly why Japanese companies can produce such great DVD players, for example, at prices that many smaller specialty manufacturers just can't touch.

For your needs, though, a good-quality stereo integrated amplifier seems like the way to go. There are some very good ones on the market. In terms of the specs, it is important to look at them to determine how the amplifier will perform with your speakers. What's important to note, though, is exactly how the measurements were made. That may take some research and will include asking a lot of questions, likely to more than one person. It's also important to look for independent assessments, such as the AudioVideoReviews section of this site, which features measurements for many popular power amplifiers.

Measurements are not as simple as they may seem. Take power output. A good number of manufacturers overstate their power ratings by doing things like driving just one channel instead of all of them, using a specified frequency instead of the full audio bandwidth, or calculating with a very high distortion figure instead of using the generally accepted industry standard of less than 1%. Doing one or all these things can make one amplifier seem far more powerful than another, when really it may not be. You have to compare apples to apples. When we measure amplifiers, we measure them all the same way -- that's important!

But while measurements are one thing, they're not necessarily everything. As one amplifier designer once told me, it's one thing to make an amplifier measure well, but it's another to make it measure well and sound good. That's key -- while you should look at the measurements, the final judge should be your ears.

...Doug Schneider