@agedhorse , unless "It's extremely reliable!" and "Sounds great!" can be added to a spec sheet, I'm pretty sure I fall into the category, stated above... even with a technical background, I never went farther than price, power, and pizza, with regards to buying an amp, cab, or combo...
... now, if I was building something myself, that would be a different story, as I would research it to the point that I may never finish...
In general this is probably best determined by the type of warranty offered, as that expresses the confidence that the company has of its products.
For me (not an engineer)....
1. Center dent EQ (optimum sounding)
2. Actual "honest" watts at 8 & 4 ohm
I haven't used an amp in about 2 years, but these would be my 2 deciding factors when purchasing a new rig.
I'm seeing "honest" an awful lot with regards to power. In this regard, the specs. already provided are clear and well defined. What would be dishonest about this?
I just want to know what all knobs at noon does. Everybody thins that's where 'flat' is but it almost never is. I'm tired of having to fuss with amps for ages to get an approximation of the sound I want.
When I buy an amp, I want to not have to scour the internet to find out that 'flat' is something crazy and not "all knobs at noon."
Why the focus on "flat", when most of the most coveted amps are anything but flat? If you knew that an amp wasn't ruler flat, wold that disqualify it from consideration? Most players just simply don't choose flat what presented with such options in a blind listening test.
Some sort of meaningful spec for the average joe to understand what is going on with the Master control, as you turn it more to the right. For example, with the Subway 800, if I turn the Master all the way to the right, am I getting the full 800 watts at 4 ohms, or did that already happen before I got that far ? I'm probably not asking this in the right terms, but perhaps just a chart showing what type of volume taper is in the amp. Am I getting everything at straight up 12 o'clock, or do I need to go further, etc. ?
This is simply impossible because output level is a function of input signal level gain control position, and eq. There is however an easier way t o tell when you are reaching the limits of the amp, that's the output limit LED. The operation and detailed functions of which are discussed thoroughly in the manuals.
I find it extremely annoying that a very large number of amps do not specify what range their "Mid" knob actually is adjusting. While having a movable mid is ideal, if it's not included I would at least like to know what frequency I'm fiddling with.
This is an interesting comment, I have always included end points on sweep mid controls, and used to provide additional points (the control's operation is linear from end to end so extrapolation is straight forward) but with the shrinking size of front panels it makes for cluttered and virtually unreadable text which is why this is no longer common.
With regard to EQ, I would also like to know the Q values for mids. Also, tell me if the bass and treble controls are shelf or peak.
Q is an interesting thought, the other specs. have always been included in the manual text but will consider adding to spec pages.
One of the things that bugs me about parametric controls is a lack of knowledge about which frequencies are where on the dial. Even if it was just published in the manual as a spec (rather than printed on the faceplate), that location reference would be useful to me.
On all of my parametric designs, the rotation is linear from endpoint to endpoint. Perhaps adding this information to the manual might be helpful?
For those of us who actually have a sense for what the various frequencies contribute to or diminish, this would be very useful IMO. I hate doing the old max or zero the gain and sweep the frequencies until you get an effect deal during a sound check...then I still need to fine tune. I could start the fine tuning more quickly if I knew the frequency ranges more precisely.
Having folks identify a frequency response is an enlightening exercise. I'm amazed at how far off (by octaves) folks can be yet they are convinced that their answer is tone perfect correct. This is the single biggest challenge with sweep mid eqs. and has been for years (worse years ago).
Having read through all the answers so far, the second order question that comes to mind is what specs are necessary/desirable to sell amps to the more technically minded folks who can connect the dots between all the various pieces of data and what is useful/desirable/necessary to entice/satisfy people who are more musician/artist minded and not really into the "how" it's accomplished.
I've played with some incredible musicians whose only piece of numerical knowledge regarding their gear was the phone number of trusted sound tech who could keep it running well. Other players I know are quite proficient in the musical realm, but also happen to be rocket scientists. The most challenging problem I see here beyond picking the right set of data to present to the rocket scientists (who like analyze exactly why the amp sounds that good), is how to be sure that some of those specs (as mentioned in an earlier post) aren't interpreted as the amp being weak in the low end because it has a HPF set point at 35 HZ or something similar.
This is a good example... regularly I hear from folks who are convinced that HPF's are bad, they are evil, they are tone sucking circuits from hell, yet the consistently choose a tone that includes a HPF frequency much higher than most would predict. I think those of you who have D-800+ amps have been surprised in this regard as well.
Honestly, give me specs to show reliability and power and then do a video where I can hear what the tone controls do. Don't do a bunch of slap and noodling high up on the fretboard, it's showing the tone of the amp, not the player's prowess. Maybe even loop over a fairly simple bass line and then turn the knobs to show what they do and how they sound. How many people can look a graph and know how the control will sound?
Reliability is pretty much covered in the warranty I think (ie. putting one's money where their marketing mouth is), I agree with your comments about demo videos and in fact the demos of the Subways contain very little slap and noodling up high in response to these thoughts.
