January 2004

In my feature on the difficulty of finding data on rock records in the early days, I mentioned in passing that one rare resource was a book published in 1970 called The Gold of Rock & Roll, 1955-1967 by H. Kandy Rohde. One small criticism I had was that "Ms. Rohde decided to save some ink and dispense with artists' first names. Later readers would no doubt be able to figure out who 'E. Presley' and 'P. Anka' might be, but what about 'S. Nelson' or 'J. Wallace?’" Ms. Rohde replies:

I stumbled upon your site and your comments on my book The Gold of Rock & Roll. It always amazes me when anyone knows about it since Arbor House sold about 6500 copies. I know it doesn't deliver by later standards, but I sat for endless hours in the library at Lincoln Center hand copying the Billboard and Cashbox charts. In the early years there was no acknowledgment of rock and roll and I had to make qualitative judgments as to what category a song went in and whether it had more bearing on rock and roll, pop, country, or rhythm and blues. I am not a musician. I was a fan who wanted a compendium of the music. I never thought that future generations would care and it was a lot less typing (with a manual typewriter) to use initials rather than full names. Thanks for remembering.

...Kandy Rohde (Hutchison)

I realize what a challenge it must have been to put the book together in the bad old manual days. I have referred to it often over the years.

You might be interested to know that I bought two copies, and gave one to a close friend who is also a devotee of old rock. He was doing double duty as a record librarian at the radio station where he was a DJ, and his job was to make a proper inventory of their records, including info on who wrote the songs. Your book was the only one that contained that data, and he found it invaluable.

You shouldn't really be surprised that some of us remember. As you know, there was almost nothing published on rock in the early days, so anything was gratefully received.

[Ms. Rohde wrote again later to say that she had bought up the unsold copies and sold them through local record stores, but that she still had 200 or so in her garage. Anyone interested in buying a copy can e-mail me, and I'll pass along your request.]

...Ian G. Masters

I have been researching the possibly of adding an outboard power amp to my A/V receiver. But after reading your article, "Things to Consider When Buying a Stereo Amplifier," I'm just a little confused. When I originally auditioned my speakers they were powered by a top-of-the-line power amp, and they sounded excellent (full bodied), compared to a pair of speakers powered by a receiver (thin, bright sounding). So now a couple of years have passed and I was thinking of adding an outboard amp to help (hopefully) with adding the detail and sparkle that I remembered when I first auditioned my speakers.

In your article you stated that, "There isn't a great deal of variation between the performance of one amplifier and the next." I have run across reviews online that lead me to believe that adding an amp to my receiver would improve the detail, sparkle, and soundstage in my system, but I take it by your article that really there would be no difference in sound between my receiver's amp and a outboard amp. So am I wasting my time and money by adding an amp to my receiver?

...Julius Aguilera

Adding extra amplification will do nothing to add "sparkle" or "detail," however you may choose to define those. The argument continues as to whether amplifiers add any distinctive character at all (see also below), but even those who swear they do will admit that it is subtle. The most adding an outboard amp to an existing receiver will do is give you more power, and that is only a matter of concern if you have too little now.

Elsewhere, your letter states that your receiver puts out 90W a side into a pair of very sensitive speakers, so I can't imagine that you need more power -- you'd need at least 200Wpc to notice any difference at all, assuming there is any difference. So, yes, adding an amp would be a waste.

More on power below.

...Ian G. Masters

I would like to thank you for a well-written and informative site. I very much appreciate the Canadian content in an area usually dominated by our neighbors to the south. The letters from readers and replies to them are always of great interest.

I have recently resolved to move into the surround-sound/home-theater realm. I own a set of speakers which are old but were refurbished less than five years ago, and I wish to make them part of my new setup. They are rated for 50 to 200W -- quite a broad rating. I was wondering if one of the higher-end A/V receivers rated for 100-110Wpc would have enough power to drive them in addition to the rest of the speakers necessary for a complete home theater?

...Aaron Hillier

Forget the power ratings on your speakers; they're meaningless. A receiver that puts out 100W or so a channel should be able to power any home-theater system without stress. That's especially true as most such systems today include a powered subwoofer. Since it's the low bass that uses up the watts, and since a sub has its own amp, the receiver's internal amps will be operating at only a fraction of their output virtually all the time.

...Ian G. Masters

I am a bit confused about your article on amplifiers not making a difference to the overall "sound" of an audio system. Did you mean that imaging, soundstage, space, etc. are a product of some other part of the system or that they are only imagined by the listener?

As I am in the process of finding a new amp, I am hoping for some enlightenment. So far every amp has made a certain amount of "difference" to the overall sound.

...Graham Wilder

The vast majority of letters I get have something to do with distinctive amplifier sound, the existence of which is an article of faith to a segment of the high-end audio press, many audiophiles, and -- especially -- a number of audio dealers who feel that they would otherwise have no way to sell one amplifier in preference to another.

Yet numerous experiments have shown that, as long as an amplifier has enough power so that it isn't driven into distortion, and as long as it isn't trying to drive a peculiar load that messes up its output stage (a rare occurrence), an amplifier simply takes a small signal and makes it big, without adding any sonic characteristics of its own.

Most of the differences between systems are due to speakers. They do have distinctive sounds, and their dispersion characteristics can affect imaging and other acoustic attributes. With multichannel systems, even these once-important characteristics have pretty much been brought under control.

...Ian G. Masters