I met with Dan D’Agostino at Innovative Audio in New York City with an agenda, to talk about how audio measurements correlate with sound quality. His frank answers surprised me. dandagostino.com/products/rel... innovativeaudiovideo.com
It's always good to hear someone who really knows what they are talking about. Much respect for Dan D'Agostino. I hope you can get an interview with Nelson Pass, too.
Met Dan when he was a repairman at a high end stereo dealership in Buffalo. They sold Dayton Wright electrostatic speakers, and all kinds of high end product. Got to talk to Dan at lengths as a repairman. Look where he went, great job Dan.
For someone who doesn't care much about measurements, Dan D'Agostino builds amps and preamps that reflect very, very outstanding measurement numbers! My dream system is powered by this guys stuff. (Still just a dream.)
Extremely interesting interview, Steve. I owned an amplifier that I believe Dan had a hand in designing or was the result of his design was the Aragon 8008ST (I think he designed the 4004). Wish I had kept that amplfier. Had Sledgehammer dynamics with the Snell B-minor loudspeaker.
This was great! And inspiring. It's about the sound! I got a chuckle that the tab featuring this video can only hold the words, "Dan D'Agostino doesn't care"
What a great interview. I wish he could have heard this interview with himself back in the early eighty's. He would have been flagergasted to hear himself.
Great interview, Mr. D'Agostino seems to be very down to earth and passionate about music not just about the analytical side of our hobby. I've never had the pleasure of owning any of his creations but have always been a fan. I just wish his current offerings would be a bit more affordable to obtain. Thanks Steve for sharing this awesome interview. I truly enjoyed it unlike the one of Andrew Singer, which I also commented on.
Watching this video, I vividly remember Dan's short talk, and his demonstration of the KAS monoblocks through Wilson WATT / Puppies at Sound by Singer, circa 1992. (And if that doesn't convince you, I will cite Aaron Neville Warm Your Heart, 1991. Just stunning.) Thank you again.
Hi Steve, I’m new in this field. I got drown into this by the RU-vid posts from Tech Ingredients. A friend and I are going to build the loudspeakers which he describes. Coincidentally, under that video was a suggestion for The Audiofilliac daily show. I watched it. And an other. And more. I find your posts very inspiring. Currently I’m rebuilding my house. And I take acoustics into account when designing and building. That is why I am now designing sound-absorbing wall panels. We are considering commercializing both the boxes and the wall panels. So you are a great inspiration to me. It could just be so big that it's going to change my life. Thank you for the great content! Best regards, Iwan The Netherlands
Great video! there is so much science behind the science and building an good sounding poweramplifier is a huge challange. I have build a lot of these biests...
Dan is a great guest! The ear is actually much more sensitive to IM but not really very sensitive to THD. But THD is usually the only measurement published. In my experience, an amplifier with a higher slew rate does sound markedly better but that is all relative to the slew rate you are comparing it to.
I've thought I have been keeping up on Steve's video. Guess not because I missed this legend! Can't afford any of dans stuff but I rank him right up their with the best in audio along with nelson pass. I have seen longer more recent videos of Dan and he is a down to earth character that loves to tell stories and talk audio. A nice find from Steve's videos!
We as people are hung up on "numbers". The better the number, assumed, the better the product. It's great marketing too. But in the end, how does it sound? Love this interview. Wish I could afford....
@Anthony Pierre, ya I remember the numbers race of the late 70’s and early 80’s for distortion and the such which produced some of ugliest sounding gear produced imho. I stopped looking at specs decades ago and simply go on the sound.
@@Carl-bd1rf I subscribed to all 3 at one time. Believed that the better the numbers, the better it was suppose to sound. That was not true. Then I found Absolute Sound.
Anthony, sad part is we really don’t know how a piece of equipment is going to sound in our listening environment until we hook it up and turn it on at home!!
I am currently serving KSA-50 SN:008. Its amazing the amount of changes these early Fan amps went through..Are they the best sounding amp...? ?? .. But properly updated they are great sounding and very FUN to listen to.. the TRUE lower power CLASS "A" can really suck you in with the proper pre-amp. Total speaker control at any impedance down to .5 ohm. What more could you ask for.
I was in college when the KSA-50 came out... I very nearly took my student loan money that was supposed to pay for my tuition and books, to buy that amplifier. Now the KSA-50 is a classic, I am left wondering if I made the right decision!
Enjoyed listening to Dan! I recently heard his progression stereo amp on a system I know and that amp alone changed my mind about a pair of speakers I didn't like before. Absolutely incredible and making me look for $22k to buy one for that sound it made. Sonic butter in the best way possible.
Nice interview Steve, Dan is one clever guy. I would love to have one of Dan’s amplifiers in a blind comparison with the amps that I have and cost a fraction of the cost of his.
Thanks, I have always been curious what that slew rate was.. My favorite car amp in 1981, the Sanyo pa6100 has that slew rate of 70 volt μs rating listed on top of the amp. Still have and use several of those today. Its probably best bang for buck stuff. Run these EV 15in DL15x drivers real nice.
"True, mirror image balanced circuitry" is spot on. As long as everything in the line matches, you'll get the best response possible. It takes time to measure each pair of components in the line match, but the payoff is the loveliest sound.
Ive been saying for years, we use our ears for listening to music. Not test equipment, as such, numbers are next to useless. Nice to hear that coming from someone so high up on the audio chain.
Brilliant interview with one of the living legends of Hifi. Shows there must still be a lot of things that we don't yet know how to measure or what is important to the human ear.
It's funny, because back in the late 70s when I purchased a HK Citation 19 power amp - the slew rate (> 40V/micro second) was the spec that stood out, and, of course, the weight 😉
Musical, forward, smooth, hard, fast... It would be interesting to know what all these needlessly ambiguous adjectives actually mean in practical terms. If you can hear a difference, surely you can also measure it and then point out the difference so that everyone can understand what you're talking about. Personally I prefer an amplifier that just amplifies the signal with as little distortion as possible and most modern amps have such low distortion that I honestly have a hard time telling the difference between them, but I'm still curious what I should be looking for when someone for example says that amplifier A is more musical than amplifier B.
I totally agree with dan , feedback it’s the worse thing in a pre or a power amplifier, and another and the most important a high defenition it’s not the way but a natural sound.
DwightMS1 It’s science but it’s much more complicated than traditional simple distortion numbers can judge. Human perception of audio is still science. Perhaps some day we understand this enough to create some much better types of measurements that can reflect the actual perceived quality.
DwightMS1 Lots of things are seen as a mystery perhaps as art until we find a good scientific understanding of it. I’m not suggesting today’s methods of measuring audio will find all truths.
Most of the time the work of great artists is usually only acquired by the wealthy...The working man can still appreciate it, but more so from a far. I do totally agree with you however.
You can find old Krell amps pretty reasonably priced. 20 years from now you'll probably be seeing D'Agostino amps that us average guys can afford, too. Or you can always forgo the boat or motorcycle at your mid-life crisis and spring for audio gear instead.
Brian, I’ve done hit my mid life crises and am on the other side!! Won’t be around in 20 years to be able to afford his amps, well at least some young and up coming audiophile will!!😁 I really wonder if all that cash for an amp really makes that much difference, I think not, but hey they look cool!
@@Carl-bd1rf they do look cool! I'm just getting to mid-life myself. I'm going the audiophile route with it. I have had an Aragon 8008 BB amp and B&W 804 speakers since the mid 90's. I'm jumping up to Pass XP20 preamp and 250.8 amp, Esoteric k05xs CD/SACD player and probably Magico A3 speakers, although I want to hear the upcoming PS Audio speakers before I commit to a speaker purchase. This will probably be my last stereo system as well. I might break my bank account, but I shouldn't break any bones in the process. Twenty years from now I will hopefully still be here, but I will be nearly 70. I will definitely be retired.
Brian, you’ve got and are looking at some good equipment there! Very cool. I had a pair of B&W cdm9nt’s until several years ago I picked up a pair of Legacy Focus speakers. Currently running a Schiit Saga pre amp, Schiit multibit dac, and Will Vincent ST-70 EL34 tube amp. I’ve owned countless amps over the years, probably spent enough to buy a 20k amp!! I never seem to keep my stuff for long. About the only piece I’ve given up that I wish I still had was a Mac C-220 pre amp. It’s fun trying to find that perfect sound.
Measurements surely aren't the last word in how stereo components sound but they play an important role. I've seen WAY too many speakers with over rated sensitivity ratings and Tube amps that come nowhere close to their advertised power claims. This is one reason I prefer Stereophile over the Absolute Sound.
Can someone help me understand what it is about this gear that makes it sound better? Better in such a way that it's worth what it costs? I recognize that this man is easily twice as smart as me. I also recognize that he deserves to be paid, very, very well indeed. I don't mean to be disrespectful or to troll, it's just that I don't understand the pricing.
Real audiophiles don't really care about measurements, they really and only care about sound, because it is in their essence and name and not love for specifications. Measurements and specifications are on second position... or none. Engineers ... another story.
A whole life apprentice have made a master, I mean, he must be better now that when he began. The momentum are/were fabulous sounding amplifiers, silky smooth and not the least aggressive. I was fortunate to enjoy them with a pair of Sonus Faber Aidas and they really were additive. About measurements, I think electronic engineers have to learn how translate measurements to the way our brain-ears decode or encode pressure variations through air, I think.
Acoustic is kind of art. Unfortunately measurement apparatus measures base tech rigidity , not upper pleasure. Of course we may try to measure also that for it's adequacy but it requires not available now apparatus and in my opinion it's expectation is nonsense due to no repeatable conditions.
i had the oportunity to hear de angostino integrate and also krell i love the looks but was not fully convinced of sound specially files in 320kbps or less sounded bad heard systems in their 10.000 total with amp source and speakers that sounded better with mp3 320kbps even my focal headphones with dragonfly cobalt sounded better with mp3 or average youtube
HH Scott I was thinking the exact same thing man. Paul McGowan had a video not too long ago where he said very similar things about designing his equipment for a specific sound instead of a statistics drag race. The comment section had more empty soap boxes then a laundromat dumpster.
@@07zx14White "more empty soap boxes, then a laundromat dumpster" 😂😂😂 I love that one. 😊 You've got to admit. It is very odd though, no? Especially when they're usually so fervent in their arguments, too. Maybe they had a convention today, and didn't let on about it to those of us with working ears. And they'll comment on Monday when they get back, maybe? It's a shame there's not really any here. Because this is what I was most looking forward to as I watched the video. See I personally find BS endlessly entertaining to listen to/read on here. It can get very creative sometimes. Especially when the story teller is very passionate, and/or angry. They can really plumb the depths of the septic systems of the world, and come up with some real doozies. Alas, people like Steve, and Paul seem to, at least lately, have really been taking the wind out of their sails. Oh well. I guess I'll have to listen to my clicks and pops off my crappy old turntable, that's hooked up to a horribly measuring vintage tube amp, through my distortion filled loudspeakers, for entertainment instead of reading their comments. I predict misery, if their side is right. What do you predict? I may even really torture myself, and use a pair of horn speakers. Then I can get terrible colorations, cupped hands effects, and the dreaded SHOUT! Egads! It's going to be unbearable! So here we go, I've got it all hooked up. It's playing some old jazz songs. I'm expecting torch, and pitchfork wielding crowds outside my condo any minute now. Yet oddly enough, as it's warming up. It's sounding absolutely beautiful. Hmmm? That's crazy! How could that be? It's as if our ears, don't hear the same way a measuring machine does. Very strange? How could that possibly be? 🤣 🤣 🤣
HH Scott Blasphemy and lies in the name of statisticians sake the world over. How do you torture yourself? Your stereo must sound like the aggressive divorce of hook and loop Velcro on a megaphone. My music is so clean that I don't even need speakers. I'm so sophisticated and savvy that I just connect directly to my beloved oscilloscope and I feel the passions of music through visual metering bliss. One time the THD was so low that it registered zero all down the board, it was pure heaven until I realized the amp wasn't on. It's almost as if people judge music and sound quality with their ears. Whoodathunkit 🤔🤐😊
What are you expecting? D' Agostino said that he, like all others , wasn't able to find the definitive correlation between measurements and listening . The question of question is: Can any designer recognize his own product under blinded conditions. Carver showed long ago how to modifiy a solid state amplifier to let it sound like any tube amp. That has proven the relevance of applied engineering. D'dA is not claiming, that his amplifiers are "the best" . So why argue? Let alone the fact, that his amps are to pricey for any objectivist.
Christian Goergen aka AstraOovier I have no real dog in the fight my friend. I'm simply stating that I make my opinions on sound quality with my ears. Statistics are an interesting and needed endeavor as well but the bottom line is no matter how good or bad the stats are, the end resulting sound is by far the biggest portion of my deciding factor. I love the science of electronics...A LOT, but how the music sounds is incredibly more important for me.
Too many comments here saying measurements don't matter, that is not strictly true. All of his amplifiers have THD of no more than 0.15%, none have THD of 0.4 or 1% so clearly he is not marketing anything with higher THD as mentioned 2 minutes into this video. What I take from what he says is that measurements do matter but are not the be all and end all in amplifier design.
Yes listen in your own home with double blind A / B comparison, but need to takes some simple steps to make sure comparison is fair, eg. same SPL levels. Don't believe in no measurements or manufacturers' claims. Measurements only good for telling consumers the optimal operation ranges.
Number are useful to a degree. The most worthless numbers are those used by A/v receivers and their endless efforts to obfuscate the truth. The ad reads "180 wpc" In reality? it's 35wpc, and beyond that, distortion exceeds 10% since it's only measured at 1khz. I am aligned with Bob Carver when he says it's about the current transfer function. That's why I have heard a 220 wpc amp blow away an amp rated at 380 wpc. That being said... some electrically laughable amps (like MCintosh tubes) can transcend magic if they are with the right speakers. Back in the day, Krell was one of the few amps that had the torque to manhandle absurdly hard to drive speakers. Numbers do matter in that case.
Good to hear someone that made great amps, but at the end of the day one has to find a amp that pleases the person buying it and also within one’s budget
Why should he care about measurements? Dan builds large high-dollar showcase amps costing the price of a great sports/luxury car. I'm sure his customers care not for measurements and I bet Dan sells everything he builds.
If measurements mattered the audio cable business would be destroyed. I want the least distortion so I can hear all the hiss, pops and 10hz wow/flutter from my $100k turntable;)
I thought the whole point of an amp is to not color the sound at all? I thought am amp should have no sound? Power yes, but sound? Isn’t that why you spend $10;000 on the speakers? I am not saying you can’t make an amp have a certain sound but why pay all this money when the whole point is to hear the original recording? And as people in the know here on this channel are aware of, the pros believe most of this upper end audiophile stuff is boloney! Why is that?🤔🤔🙄🙄🥴. And what speakers does he use? Oh and the all important cables ? Or the pre amp? Record or flac? Heck the room is more important once you have a decent mid range amp! Let’s see this guys latest hearing evaluation numbers from an audiologist? I mean please! And some people wonder why the younger generation isn’t into hifi! I think they might be a little bit smarter than the older generation! Not saying his stuff doesn’t sound good but there is a reason why company’s like schiit audio are flourishing!🤔🤔🤔😬🤫🤫
