"To have a truly high-fidelity music system therefore requires very powerful amplifiers. Amplifier power is the single most important factor in choosing an amp. Without adequate power, all amplifiers sound badly. You can pick a clipping amplifier based on it not sounding as badly as another amplifier (tubes usually preferred over transistors), but if you really want clean, dynamic, effortless, and smooth sound, you simply must use adequate amplifier power.
In short, my take on amplifiers is to use a tube amp that clips gracefully if I must listen to a clipping amp. But I'd rather have an amplifier with so much power that it never clips! The sound from powerful amps is dramatically better than underpowered amps, even if they clip nicely."
I admire and respect Roger greatly and cannot believe I still haven't visited his place now that he moved up here. Mainly too afraid I won't be able to leave without a pair in the back...
However, while many, many studies have highlighted the need for a great deal of power (and speakers to handle it) to meet realistic listening levels without clipping, most people do not listen quite so loudly and most clipping happens on loud obnoxious'ish peaks so that it goes unnoticed.
Of course, I am running 500+ W/ch into my inefficient Magnepans in a pretty small room... It is designed to hit 105+ dB peaks but I don't really want to be in the room when that happens...
Yep, Roger nails it as a clipping amp is horrid. I first heard my MartinLogan Monoliths being driven by some fancy, expensive 50wpc Class A SS amp at low volume (i.e. I could talk with the owner) and it seemed fine. He then cranked it up, and boy was the clipping obvious.
Once in my room, I've always used >400wpc on them, and for the last decade, biamped with various amps. Removing the parasitic (and sucky) passive crossover really helped efficiency as well. I run an active xover based on the DBX4800.
Today, I run a Sanders 600wpc ESL Amp on the panels, a Sunfire 300wpc on the woofers (60 - 315Hz) + an IB Sub driven by 2x400wpc (150w will bottom the driver, so way overpowered).
I engineer and tune the system to deliver 105 dB SPL at less than 1% THD. At 90 dB, it's only 0.6% (that's in-room for the entire signal chain, not bad).
In normal use, including blockbuster movies, it does not audibly clip.
Interesting read, nothing new really; this caught my attention:
The worst tube amp I measured was an Atma-sphere OTL amp. It was rated at 30 watts. It only produced 14 watts into an 8 ohms load and had 13% distortion. It was a new amp and both channels measured virtually identically. So I don't think it was defective.
The following is of course also my experience - I just prefer amps with parallel thermal monitor circuits that simply cut off all power until powered back on:
I think you can now see why I prefer very high power, solid state amps without any protective circuitry for driving ESLs. This is because they can drive ESLs with linear frequency response, while tube amps roll off the highs.
Sanders would rather sit around and talk endlessly about technical topics and specifications instead of letting his products speak for themselves. This has occurred at every demo of his gear.
Brian, every demo I've ever heard of the Sanders model 10 ESL powered by his amps has been very good. So they do speak well for themselves. He's even let the music play for quite a while.
But I do enjoy hearing and reading about the technical details.
The Sanders ESL amp I have is the best I've heard on my Monoliths.
Since you deal SoundLabs, what has your experience been with the Sanders amps on the SL's?
Brian, every demo I've ever heard of the Sanders model 10 ESL powered by his amps has been very good. So they do speak well for themselves. He's even let the music play for quite a while.
But I do enjoy hearing and reading about the technical details.
The Sanders ESL amp I have is the best I've heard on my Monoliths.
Since you deal SoundLabs, what has your experience been with the Sanders amps on the SL's?
Brian, every demo I've ever heard of the Sanders model 10 ESL powered by his amps has been very good. So they do speak well for themselves. He's even let the music play for quite a while.
But I do enjoy hearing and reading about the technical details.
The Sanders ESL amp I have is the best I've heard on my Monoliths.
Since you deal SoundLabs, what has your experience been with the Sanders amps on the SL's?
I heard an Innersound amp on a pair of smaller Sound Labs years ago and didn't care for it. It had no problem driving the speakers to loud levels, but I found the treble and mids rather dry and somewhat grainy sounding and uninvolving.
Sound Labs reflect everything in the system. On Maggies the Innersound/Sanders amps are fine.
Sanders would rather sit around and talk endlessly about technical topics and specifications instead of letting his products speak for themselves. This has occurred at every demo of his gear.
Sanders would rather sit around and talk endlessly about technical topics and specifications instead of letting his products speak for themselves. This has occurred at every demo of his gear.
I am sure much of what he has written sounds plausible even though one may not agree with all points such as a a very narrow sweet spot, which he is adamant about. My point is rather that I don't find listening to the products to be compelling. Without that, all the carefully crafted words lose their meaning.
I am sure much of what he has written sounds plausible even though one may not agree with all points such as a a very narrow sweet spot, which he is adamant about. My point is rather that I don't find listening to the products to be compelling. Without that, all the carefully crafted words lose their meaning.
You may not like his products and I am sure you don't like all High End products.. What are you arguments against his points of view aside from your not liking his products... I would point that some people amongst them HP who I believe in high esteem (I respect his points too to a good extent) lauded his products ...
You may not like his products and I am sure you don't like all High End products.. What are you arguments against his points of view aside from your not liking his products... I would point that some people amongst them HP who I believe in high esteem (I respect his points too to a good extent) lauded his products ...
Frantz, I think I've said enough on the topic and respect the man's right to earn a living, but technical papers do not necessarily assure high performance and most importantly long term listening satisfaction.
Frantz, I think I've said enough on the topic and respect the man's right to earn a living, but technical papers do not necessarily assure high performance and most importantly long term listening satisfaction.
No doubt but your post would imply that there is no "high performance and most importantly long term listening satisfaction." from his gears. I have mentioned that one particular and famous reviewer seems to think the contrary. There are others, I have never heard his gears so can't opine on their particular sound quality but if I were to pay attention to what many in whiose ears I believe I would think they are very special gears ...There is thus some basis to his way of doing things, of designing gears.
No doubt but your post would imply that there is no "high performance and most importantly long term listening satisfaction." from his gears. I have mentioned that one particular and famous reviewer seems to think the contrary. There are others, I have never heard his hears so can't opine on their particular sound quality but if I were to pay attention to what amny in which ears I believe I would think they are very special gears ...There is thus some basis to his way of doing things, of designing gears.
have never heard his gears so can't opine on their particular sound quality but if I were to pay attention to what many in which ears I believe I would think they are very special gears
magnetech/innersound/sanders amps are made by Coda Technologies. AFAIK, Sanders doesn't design or manufacture any of his amps. Coda Tech is what was left of the former Threshold Corp. like nelson pass' designs, they're minimalist circuits with uncluttered gain blocks. gold plated PCBs, PTFE insulated wiring, top parts quality and very robust build quality. Anyone who is familiar with Coda System 100 will tell you its one of the very best class-a amps extant. try finding one used, their owners won't part with them!
