It’s been some time since I seriously considered hi-fi gear in terms other than sound qualities. But I did think broadly and specifically in terms of “current” when shopping for big amps. I have heard some bad-sounding amps that were said to have “high current capabilities”. Does this mean they do not actually deliver “high current” to/through the speakers’ circuits, or does this mean there is more to consider than just “high current”? I think useable high current is very important for driving tough speaker loads acceptably, and I also know for certain there is more to a good amp than high current capability. Close listening to serious Music will out problems, and experience helps to pinpoint problems with amps. We know going in that speakers (and crossovers) are reactive loads, and big speakers present complex problems to an amplifier, especially if one insists on one amp per stereo channel, as I have done. In hi-fi, as in Life, there’s no Free Lunch. The less you ask from your system, the more likely you are to get it cheap. The more you ask, the bigger the hassle on all fronts.>>

> >

Paul S>>

Which came first, the desire for “Good Sound” or the equipment to get Good Sound from our hi-fis? Actually, it’s a trick question, since most of us start out with “something”, and we move on from there. And taking it from wherever we first encounter it to where we need it to be is The Sonic Ballgame. All the while, there may be “absolutes” that determine Good Sound, but I’d be hard pressed (and not motivated) to lay out what “Good Sound” is in the first place, except, like we keep insisting around here, it’s personal. One thing I am sure of, that I will stick my neck out to say, is that there is potentially good gear “out there” that might or might not have been brought into existence for “The Right Reasons”, and, in any case, no gear will make Good Sound/Music by itself but it needs you to make it sound good. Back to the subject of this thread, the MA-9S2s, I went down a rabbit hole this morning and I got a laugh when I wound up listening (on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vn5LWQQecw )  to (MA-9S2 project leader) Ken Ishiwata’s own hi-fi system. On the one hand, Ha!. On the other hand, what do you expect? I think it is not even boasting to say I get better Music from my MA-9S2s than Mr. Ishiwata gets from his system. But, does this really “matter”? For sure, we really want it to matter enough to save us time by “assuring success” with our chosen piece of equipment, that the specs and the direction taken by the original developer will somehow add up to Good Sound in OUR listening room. For better or for worse, per the basic tenets of GSC, the only way to truly make gear work is to work with the gear. Anything less remains random and/or accidental. We hear Potential and go on from there, and I believe it is possible to do/get More from equipment than the original developer did.>>

> >

Paul S>>

Amir, where I am with my main system today is a ways from Minimum sound. I have shared that I got to where I am now by using experience to “leverage” the sound from my gear for targeted changes that I deem to be “improvements”, according to my (targeted) wishes at the time. I can still “hear through” my present system to the sound qualities I had in previous iterations of my system. This please me, particularly now, because I only wished for “More” this last round, in the first place. To be clear, I have NOT figured out a way to make the electricity a non-factor! I wish! But I have “taken steps”, and it has been less of a problem for me for the past few months; and I hope the improvements hold. Any remarks I make about “minimum” or “acceptable” should be understood in the context of my stated “goals” for my system, or they might also refer to considerations that some things I go on about probably do not really matter in the context of other’s systems, especially when understood in the light of their living situations. As it happens, I have taken the trouble to put together a Musical system that puts out a lot of power, and this is what I am recording and sharing now, partly or even mostly as a log for my own reference. I have made plenty of compromises along the way, and I mean to be both forthcoming and frank about them. I have certainly learned and benefitted from what others have shared on this Forum, and I hope to add something to this amazing Library with my own posts.>>

> >

>Best regards,>

Paul S

rowuk wrote:

In my over 50 years of personal audio, I think that I can explain part of the speaker/amp compatibility. This opinion is everything but comprehensive. Bad matches in amp/speakers manifest themselves very often in the bass. Please consider, these thoughts have been observed on speaker systems with the amplifiers connected directly to the voice coil without crossovers. Some combinations sound flabby and others seem to have the life and 3 dimensionality constricted out of them. In my own research, I find that there seems to be a necessary balance between the BL of the woofer and the damping factor of the amp. If the woofer has high BL, lower damping factor seems to be beneficial (until things get flabby again). The opposite can also be true: woofers with "low BL" seem to work better with high damping factor. Just maybe part of the magic is based on total Q of the entire woofer system. This makes sense to me because every musical instrument works the same way - we promote resonance through high total Q or inhibit resonance with low Q. Passive speaker level crossovers affect the BL/Q of the woofer and probably demand a respective consideration in amplifier damping factor.

Paul S wrote:

Amir, what you say and the simple way you put it is indeed a very important consideration for speaker/amp matching, and it is something that one must actually hear and cultivate in the first place. Since there is no way to emperically quantify the "results" in this case, it becomes in fact a matter of "taste", a popular shuttlecock in Philosophy, widely misunderstood and underappreciated in Audio. Also in this catagory is the matter of "texture", a sub-set of "dynamics", and many other equally important matters better understood in Musical terms than in audio terms. All this is something we must all deal with at some point in our personal audio journey, along with the excruciating problems of "trade-offs", where something we want must give in order to get something else we want. basically, Either/Or. Simply stated, anyone who thinks they will get it all has not been at it very long. Best regards Paul S

Only so much can be gained from thinking about speaker/amp matching in the abstract. At some point we have to decide what’s most important to us, personally. I think the idea of a “comfort zone” for given amps and speakers is objective to a point, and then it also becomes a personal decision. It seems to me that the “objective facts” of amplifier power requirements are that exponential increases in power are required for “linear” increases in speaker output, including so-called “nominal” increases in output power. Meanwhile, most amps and speakers are decidedly non-linear in terms of response, in terms of both power and frequency, as a given driver also responds one way with low amp power and another way as amp power increases. Multiple drivers and crossovers only complicate these issues; they certainly do not “solve” them, en totale. Factoring in to speaker/amp decisions are choice of Music, personal expectations, and limitations imposed by “outside” circumstances. Of all these things, I think the most overlooked “objective” issue is keeping speakers and amps “comfortable” at all times during listening sessions. It takes listening in a certain way to hear the “comfort factor”, but I am pretty sure most people who are at all interested to try it could pick it up easily enough. It is unusual to hear Big Music played forcefully without strain, not to mention that not everyone has any use for this capability, in the first place. I think it is even rarer to hear Music via a system that maintains Musical balance and composure from the softest to and through the most bombastic passages.>>

> >

Paul S>>

Delima was designer of Audiopax, I had Audiopax Model 88 .

Delima believed there is some parameters that affect on amplifier/speaker matching. It's name is timbrelock if you check audiopax website.

I have worked with timbrelock, The Timbre Lock has two bias settings to provide a way of fine-tuning the bass and midrange . I worked with timbre lock and it works , one tune the bass and another tune the midrange. I did not check if audiopax could be match to all speakers but with some speakers timbrelock worked perfectly. 

I think some speakers will not match to audiopax but what I learned from audiopax was about how some parameters can affect on sound when the amplifier is match to speaker.

When there is  perfect matching (amplifier/speaker) the sound characteristic of both amplifier and speaker will be less obvoius/evident and I will get purer sound.

Paul S wrote:

I will say plainly that I still prefer the sound from relaxed SET and old paper drivers; but this preference is obviated/swamped by "real world listening" to big, complex Music, where, IMO, SETs and old radio drivers loose their sonic advantages, as they simply can't do Big Music to my satisfaction. Paul S

Paul S wrote:

I can't imaging being happy with 89 dB speakers driven by Audiopax, certainly not in the house I'm in now. However, it's possible that someone else might find it serves him well. Again, I agree that de Lima was "on to something", whatever it was, and I think there is already at least one thread (and certainly several posts) on the Audiopax amps posted here at GSC. Best regards, Paul S

Paul S wrote:

We at GSC know about DSET, which is +/- an end run on the question of driver/amp "net efficiency" vs Total System Sound. Paul S