New PS Audio Sprout100 Amplifier

chazmo

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Hi guys,

I just bought one of these for a small space in my kitchen where I'm putting a phonograph and CD player.... This PS Audio amp seems cool.

However, I note that it doesn't have any bass/treble or left/right balance. I'm used to an amp from prehistoric days which has those things and I'm wondering if that's typically what you get these days. Are the amp folks expecting that you have bass/treble/balance adjustments on the speakers themselves? I note this amp uses banana plugs for the speakers, not speaker wire, but at 100W/4OhmChannel I don't expect these are expected to be self-powered speakers. Are they?

Sorry for the ignorance. Getting back into audio gear with 1980s mentality. :)
 

GAD

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So that's a Headphone amp, though it can obviously do other stuff, but there's a whole world of "headphone amps" and that one fits squarely in that world, and in the world of headphone amps, no - you would not get balance or tone. A headphone amp's job is to amplify as cleanly as possible - the end. Any deviation from that is considered tone suck in that world and so they have none of that.

Example - I'm currently using a Grace Design M903 on my desk: As you can see there are no such controls:

grace_m903_01-o.tle_.8HBvSL3Q71QzjNeaTYpbfMDOk.jpg


Other headphone amps I've had:

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Headphone amps are a dangerous path. That way lies madness...
 

GAD

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Back to your question, if you have to adjust the EQ then your source is bad. We tend to amp for the purest absolute reproduction of what was recorded. If you want more bade, buy better cans (or speakers).

Yes, really.
 

chazmo

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Thanks for that Gary. I kind of figured that, and yes it's a headphone amp, but we won't be using it much for that.

Anyway, that's quite a collection of gear you've got there. Maybe I should've spoken to you first before I jumped on this PS Audio amp... That said, the thing has great reviews (and I think it'll work great for what I need).

I'll keep you posted!
 

twocorgis

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Back to your question, if you have to adjust the EQ then your source is bad. We tend to amp for the purest absolute reproduction of what was recorded. If you want more bade, buy better cans (or speakers).

Yes, really.

I always heard that tone controls were present to compensate for the inadequacies of human hearing, especially folks like me that have been playing and seeing loud music for many years now. For me, you can't beat the sound of '70s and '80s amplifiers, and I love my c. 1986 Nakamichi SR-4a receiver. I hope it lasts forever, but if it doesn't, I just bought a mint SR-3a (45 WPC "little brother") just in case. Combined with my old Thorens TD145 and Boston Acoustics T830s, it's aural ecstasy around here with my old vinyl!
 

adorshki

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I always heard that tone controls were present to compensate for the inadequacies of human hearing
And in the case of equalizers, to compensate for the properties of a given room.
Years and years ago I subscribed to the Dead's early wall of sound philosophy that many speakers at lower volume is better than fewer at higher volume:
I have a pair of AR28 2-way bookshelfs with 2-1/4 driver and 8" woofers and a pair of Sansui 3-ways with 3" tweeters, 5" mids and 12" woofers, and a subwoofer with 3-way cut-off.
To try to have an ideal cone size for a broader range of freqs.
The AR'S are magnificent for horns but the Sansuis are better for piano and voice.
, especially folks like me that have been playing and seeing loud music for many years now. For me, you can't beat the sound of '70s and '80s amplifiers, and I love my c. 1986 Nakamichi SR-4a receiver. I hope it lasts forever, but if it doesn't, I just bought a mint SR-3a (45 WPC "little brother") just in case. Combined with my old Thorens TD145 and Boston Acoustics T830s, it's aural ecstasy around here with my old vinyl!
I'm only running 26 watts (plenty enough for my listening room) but yes I'd much rather swim in the ocean than put a fishbowl around my head, "analogously" speaking....
Y'just can't feel the bass with headphones.
Also they've been proven to be hazardous to your hearing, if you've got any left.
Your drums don't like to be trapped inside those shells, they should be "vented" at the very least.
At our ages maybe not such a big deal anymore but I've advised my brother not to let the nephew do an overkill with earbuds.
Anything that plugs right into the canal is especially bad.
 

twocorgis

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And in the case of equalizers, to compensate for the properties of a given room.
Years and years ago I subscribed to the Dead's early wall of sound philosophy that many speakers at lower volume is better than fewer at higher volume:
I have a pair of AR28 2-way bookshelfs with 2-1/4 driver and 8" woofers and a pair of Sansui 3-ways with 3" tweeters, 5" mids and 12" woofers, and a subwoofer with 3-way cut-off.
To try to have an ideal cone size for a broader range of freqs.
The AR'S are magnificent for horns but the Sansuis are better for piano and voice.

I'm only running 26 watts (plenty enough for my listening room) but yes I'd much rather swim in the ocean than put a fishbowl around my head, "analogously" speaking....
Y'just can't feel the bass with headphones.
Also they've been proven to be hazardous to your hearing, if you've got any left.
Your drums don't like to be trapped inside those shells, they should be "vented" at the very least.
At our ages maybe not such a big deal anymore but I've advised my brother not to let the nephew do an overkill with earbuds.
Anything that plugs right into the canal is especially bad.

I recently added a PSB 5i Subwoofer to the vinyl system after finding one for a ridiculously low price (run all PSBs on the home theater upstairs), and once you dial it in, it really augments the low end nicely. I was never really a fan of more than two speakers for pure music, but I really like this setup with the the newly refoamed T830s. The SR-4a is rated at 60 (real) WPC, and I don't need all of them for sure (heck the SR-3a's 45 WPC are loud), but there's always something to be said for headroom! The Jico/Sas stylus that I bought for the worn out stylus on the V15 Type III was a great upgrade too. My vinyl has never sounded better!
 

GAD

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Sigh.

Headphones are not bad for your ears.

In-ear monitors (IEMs) are not bad for your ears.

Excessive sound-pressure levels (SPL) are bad for your ears.

You can damage your ears with headphones, IEMs, guitars, airplanes, firearms, or sitting in a data-center for too long. SPL damage is cumulative, too, which is why sitting in a data center can make IT people lose their hearing and then they can't figure out why.

Headphone listening is about quality above all else. If you haven't experience aural nirvana with headphones then you need a better rig.
 

Nuuska

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https://www.psaudio.com/products/sprout100-integrated-amplifier/#tab-specs


Hello

If the above amp is what you bought - then it is an integrated stereo amp with speaker connections via banana jacks/plugs ( very good connection actually )

Unfortunately no tone controls. 2x100W/50W @ 4/8ohms power - plenty for one room.

Some folks puristically assume that recording are perfect - your speakers should be perfect match for your acoustics. But real life seldom matches this assumption.
Even if the sound system and acoustics were perfect - one dilemma remains. When a musical piece was recorded and mixed - someone was there to decide how it should sound - often the producer in old days. Many musicians might have wanted a different balance or spectrum, but the decision was made by those who paid the expences. I can see no reason why I should respect their view over my personal taste - so I adjust EQ when necessary.

For those who say that electrical EQ changes phase-curve I answer, that so does acoustic EQ. But this is how far I'll go into that swamp.
 

chazmo

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Hey thanks for your opinions, gents! I actually wasn't making an argument either way about having EQ or bass/treble controls; I was just a little surprised that this amp didn't have them. As GAD pointed out, for "headphone" amps like the Sprout100, this seems to be the norm.

Nuuska, that's a very interesting argument. I'm too much of a novice to have any real opinion, but have my share of recordings that *I* think sound better with some EQ... In a couple of cases, and these are CD-quality, left and right channel are not well-balanced. Could stand some fade between the channels.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to having this little beastie with a turntable and speakers in my kitchen. Can't eat it, but can cook to it! :)
 

Quantum Strummer

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My main home listening amplifier is a tweed Fender Deluxe. And when I'm not running audio from CDs or smartdevices into it (summed to mono) it also works pretty well as a guitar amp! ;)

(When I want higher fidelity I listen through Audio-Technica monitoring headphones or an old set of Denon earbuds.)

-Dave-
 

fronobulax

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Because my endorsement of what other people say is important, darn it!

I understood tone controls and by extension equalizers came into existence to deal with inaccuracies that were perceived at the ear and caused by the room (or environment). So if your headphone or equivalent has a flat response, your amp faithfully reproduces what it is given and you don't like the result, you need to deal with your hearing problems or your input source to fix the problem.

GADs point about SPL levels acknowledged. But there was a point in my life that the only way me and my friends could produce (or be exposed to) damaging sound pressure levels was cranking things up and listening with headphones. Nothing else we had access to or got exposed to was that loud. So while it was the SPL doing the damage, everyone's parent's thought it was the headphones.

While the Dead did use lots of speakers at various times it is perhaps too simplistic to reduce the design to "cleaning up the sound by using more speakers individually operating at lower distortion levels". Part of the goal was to have the band hear the same clean sound the audience did and that meant the multiple speakers were operated in a phased array.
 

GAD

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The "problem" comes down to psychoacoustics. Music sounds better when it's loud.
 

Nuuska

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While the Dead did use lots of speakers at various times it is perhaps too simplistic to reduce the design to "cleaning up the sound by using more speakers individually operating at lower distortion levels". Part of the goal was to have the band hear the same clean sound the audience did and that meant the multiple speakers were operated in a phased array.


The Grateful Dead sound system was actually not a PA at all - in the way most of people think of PA.

It was a huge backline system added with outrageously powerfull vocal array. I have info of it in a book - but it might be fairly easy to find in internet, too.

Back to original problem - if one wishes to have more or less bass or highs for whatever reason in order to enjoy any particular piece of music ever recorded - what's wrong in using tone controls? Be it just "Tone" - "Low + High" - "Low-Mid-High" or 31-band graphic EQ - or 8-bamd full parametric. . . . or ???

If it sounds better to you after little tweak - why should you care , if someone says : "That's not correct way!"
 

chazmo

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I set it up with a couple of crappy boombox speakers (got some nice KLH bookshelf speakers on order). The unit is beautiful. Incredible industrial design. Even the packing container from the factory is awesome. Only flaw was a bad battery in the remote, which I called customer service and they told me exactly what to do! :)

Rockin' to the Doobie Brothers right now in my kitchen via bluetooth. Setting up the turntable later. :)

EBHss2l.jpg
 

Bill Ashton

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Charlie, GPX? I mean, GPX??? You couldn't have asked for help? Damn.

(I'm not that far away, B & W's or MC-1000's sitting here waiting their rotation...tell 'im, Steve!)
 

chazmo

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OK, problem fixed, Bill! :) :) Circa 2000 KLH speakers, 1980s Dual turntable, '70s Steely Dan "Pretzel Logic" on the TT, and the new PS Audio Sprout100 amp. I'm in heaven, and my son is too. :)

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GAD

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Nice! The first nice turntable I ever experienced was my dad's Dual back in the '70s.
 

Bill Ashton

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OK, at least I can sleep tonight without medication...was ready to load stuff in the car and head for West Boylston!

Seriously though, have some "real" speakers should your delivery time stretch out and your eys are bleeding :rolleyes-new:
 
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