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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: Natural Remedies for Sick Speakers?

Post Subject: The Part of the Amp(s) (yet again)Posted by Paul S on: 6/27/2012

How many times have we heard the mantra, speakers/amps/room?  Over the past few months I have listened to many non-musical private and salon installations, amazed that the owners have in every case seemed generally happy with the sound from their expensive systems. Because of consistently bad overall sound, finding amps has been difficult, and driver/speaker testing bogged down for want of suitable amps. Well, things hi-fi have finally changed for the better for me.

It should be obvious that to get specific sound in one's room requires specific speakers driven by specific amps.  Sure, an acceptable "range" might be established; but mix-n-match is very definitely out, given clear sonic objectives going in. In my case, it quickly became apparent that I needed quite a lot of power to cleanly drive any stack I tried. And I just as quickly established (what I suspected initially), that [clean] power alone was not nearly enough. Now, while I don't really need to start over, I do have to re-evaluate some drivers and combinations of drivers in light of the sonic advances that suitable amplification has brought me. Looking back, I'm glad I did not succumb to the PP SET hybrids, despite their wonderful sound, since the more I reflect, the more I realize that they were, indeed, struggling on tutti with less in the way of a "load" than my present amps will see, despite these PP SETs sported a 140W "rating", and so "shouldn't" be as far off the mark as they are, as a matter of fact.

Driver Development 101A makes it clear: While building up ones own drivers, keep the amp(s) in mind all the while.  Although there might be several ways to approach driver and system development, sooner or later the speaker/amp/room path will become a single track.

Paul S

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