Amplifier and speaker as a system

I've already answered the stated question beginning your thread: getting a competent amp is trivial. In your "weakest link in the chain scenario", the amp should never be the weakest link. If it is, there is something wrong with the amp.

Ron Party said:

I've already answered the stated question beginning your thread: getting a competent amp is trivial. In your "weakest link in the chain scenario", the amp should never be the weakest link. If it is, there is something wrong with the amp.

Click to expand...

i mostly agree with you on this; however, there are a few systems where specific amplifiers are 'essential' to the whole 'specialness' of the system, and many others where there would be a number of choices which could be reasonably substituted. i do agree completely that speaker--room is multiple degrees more critical to overall performance and character.

if one goes to an audio show one quickly knows which rooms work with which speaker......or not...amplifiers are more a matter of 'spice' and seasoning'.

Mike Lavigne said:

if one goes to an audio show one quickly knows which rooms work with which speaker......or not...amplifiers are more a matter of 'spice' and seasoning'.

Click to expand...

It depends on one's goals. If one's goal is to purchase an amp based solely on what rocks one's sonic boat, then spice and seasoning may be necessary. If one's goal is to obtain accuracy, then there is no place for spice and seasoning with an amp purchase.

Ron Party said:

I've already answered the stated question beginning your thread: getting a competent amp is trivial. In your "weakest link in the chain scenario", the amp should never be the weakest link. If it is, there is something wrong with the amp.

Click to expand...

Could just be the wrong amp for the speakers. For an extreme example, a 2A3 three watt amp with a pair of 87dB efficient speakers. The 2A3 amps might rock on a pair of horn speakers and puke their guts out on the other. I do agree that you can have the *greatest* components in the world, but if you have a crappy sounding room, it's all for naught. The room might be (and really it is) the most important link in the chain, but there are other links in the chain that can surely break and bring it all crashing down. The point is that it is all a circle "jerkle" and we need everything to work together correctly. Don't buy a .1mv cartridge and plug it into a MM input and except anything but noise and hum is just another of 1000 examples I can think of. There are so many things you can do wrong and ruin everything. The original point to this thread was to discuss how critical the amp/speaker interface is and it has been hijacked.

Mark

mep said:

Could just be the wrong amp for the speakers. For an extreme example, a 2A3 three watt amp with a pair of 87dB efficient speakers. The 2A3 amps might rock on a pair of horn speakers and puke their guts out on the other. <snip> The original point to this thread was to discuss how critical the amp/speaker interface is and it has been hijacked.

Mark

Click to expand...

Mark, I understand what you are saying. You just cited an example of an amp which is the weakest link in the chain. But finding a competent amp to drive a pair of 87dB efficient speakers is trivial.

mep said:

Could just be the wrong amp for the speakers. For an extreme example, a 2A3 three watt amp with a pair of 87dB efficient speakers. The 2A3 amps might rock on a pair of horn speakers and puke their guts out on the other. I do agree that you can have the *greatest* components in the world, but if you have a crappy sounding room, it's all for naught. The room might be (and really it is) the most important link in the chain, but there are other links in the chain that can surely break and bring it all crashing down. The point is that it is all a circle "jerkle" and we need everything to work together correctly. Don't buy a .1mv cartridge and plug it into a MM input and except anything but noise and hum is just another of 1000 examples I can think of. There are so many things you can do wrong and ruin everything. The original point to this thread was to discuss how critical the amp/speaker interface is and it has been hijacked.

Mark

Click to expand...

Mark:

God we're going to have to have a section for your use of the English language

I've heard 2A3 amps puke their guts on 103 dB efficient speakers too. (of course load and impedance stability is important too!)

circle "jerkle" that would make an interesting thread...

Over here the presence of very good acousticians and low labor costs makes building a dedicated room easy. It's costing me only about 15k to fully fit out the room including expensive almute panels from eCalme, Japan and fire/smoke safe fabric from Guilford of Maine.

Getting my hands on amps for the same money to try out at home is not so easy. Over hear, dealers rarely stock the Halo products. If you want them you have to indent them. In my instance at least, finding a "best" matching amp for my speakers is not just not trivial, it is more difficult.

As Myles pointed out, sensitivity ratings alone paint a very incomplete picture. My 90w PP sounded all too lush and slow with my VR-9s which has a sealed bass enclosure but were quite transparent and quick with my former VR-5 SEs (now my Dad's) which have a quasi-transmission line bass enclosure. They use the same drivers and have the same sensitivity rating. They sounded very much alike however when attached to 110w SS and 220w SS, I believe because the SS amps were up to the task of doubling up when impedance dipped.

JackD201 said:

They sounded very much alike however when attached to 110w SS and 220w SS, I believe because the SS amps were up to the task of doubling up when impedance dipped.

Click to expand...

You've made my point.

Hi

The main thing is that the amplifier be able to drive the speaker. There are choices several choices and frankly electronics have gotten so good that one has to strain to find a bad sounding amp. It is not that they are all good and great but they are, for the most part, decent. Be it tube or SS finding a decent amplifier is not a big deal. Now the Room-Speaker coupling is problematic and in most cases difficult to get right. For most people transforming their living room in a listening room is not feasible .. even when that is an option, Room Treatment is not easy ... It is eminently difficult if not impossible to accomplish by ear only... It often requires tools and knowledge that are rather specialized. It is not that an audiophile would not be able to do a decent job but the ultimate seems to be the province of professionals. I am also thinking that the room must be tuned to the speaker one chooses ...
To me the degree of difficulty and the final results reside there in the room-speaker interface not in the amp of course putting aside basic electrical adequacy.

Frantz

Sorry mep .. about the thread hijacking.. Could this be our first hijakced thread?

Frantz

Nah, it's just one of many. I was just starting to feel bad for Reginald because he started the thread with the point of discussing the amp/speaker interface. I do agree that the room/speaker interface is harder to pull off correctly than the speaker/amp interface. I am one of the lucky ones who has a dedicated room for my stereo system. I built an addition on to my house so I could have my own room which is safe from any decorating or sarcasim from my wife. It also doesn't pull double duty as the home theater room-that is upstairs. I have a farily good sized L-shaped room with 9' ceilings that has 2' x 4' sound dampening panels across the side walls and rear wall of the room. I have no idea how it measures, but it sounds real good.

Mark

I would like to assert that the "third leg" of the group, or system is not the room, but the speaker cable itself. Why? Because as every speaker designer will tell you, the speaker cable becomes (from the amplifier's point of view) electrically part of the speaker's crossover network; and as such becomes part and parcel of the "load" the amplifier is looking at. I learned this lesson from Roger Sanders, the founder of Innersound and BTW, the primary mid-wife that attended the birth of MartinLogan! His instruction had mostly to do with why stats need speaker cables with very low capacitance, and just a bit of extra resistance. But along the way I learned how amplifiers in general view the "load" connected to them; and that that load includes the speaker cable, starting at its connection to the amplifier.

So, in my opinion, the amplifier/speakercable/speaker "group' sets the sonic character of an audio system to an overwhelming degree. The room and connected peripherals (sources, cords and interconnects) will modulate that sonic character, positively or negatively from the users perspective, but can never fundamentally alter the sonic signature of those three connected elements.

I you buy into this notion, then something becomes weirdly obvious: I would bet real American dollars that over 90% of the time, system-building begins with the selection of the loudspeaker. OK, but is the buyer taking into account the amp driving it. How does the buyer know that one of the speakers that got UN-selected might have actuall been even better if it had the good luck to be driven by a compatible amp and cable? The answer is: the buyer doesn't know. And the only way out of this dilemma (with this group theory in mind) is to choose three or four of each (speaker, amp, cable) You migh just be UIN-selecting