Amp/Preamp Asylum: RE: agreed on all counts! Thanks for putting this up. by Ralph Looking for a new Amp or Preamp? If you're after tubes, post over here.

For Sale Ads FAQ / News / Events

Posted by Ralph (M ) on June 19, 2012 at 08:15:32

In Reply to: RE: agreed on all counts! Thanks for putting this up. posted by morricab on June 18, 2012 at 14:47:53:

This may be going back a stretch but in one of the first reviews on any of our amplifiers the reviewer used a set of Apogee Full Ranges, which were also one ohm. We used a set of our Z-Music autoformers between the speaker and our (early) set of MA-1s and the result worked really well! IOW they were easy to drive other than their impedance.

However I should point something out. While an amplifier *may* be able to drive a difficult load, that is not the same as saying it is sounding its best when doing so- there is a reason why a difficult load is considered difficult- its harder for the amp to drive. While this logic is not rocket science by any means, it is a simple truth that lower impedances do not benefit high end audio reproduction at all, nor do difficult phase angles in the load.

With respect to impedance, its a simple fact that you will get more power, more bandwidth and lower distortion if a tube amp with an output transformer is driving a higher impedance (IOW it will sound better). What most people don't realize is that while they will not make more power, otherwise this is also true of any transistor amp. You can see it in their specs. Four ohms came in as a way to get amps to make more power since efficiency had taken a back seat to the cost of the driver itself. This is a historical situation; these days many audiophile accept four ohms and don't think much about it but there was a time when it was unusual and for good reason.

IOW four ohms has no benefit to reproduction if sound quality is your goal . If on the other hand sound pressure is your goal then there is a slight advantage if you have a transistor amp that can manage it. I've not gone into speaker cables but they are critical on four ohms where they are far less so on eight or sixteen.

These things that I have mentioned here are not only audible but also measurable. FWIW I don't agree that the Lamm you mentioned is serious competition although I am sure its a very competent amplifier. Someday maybe we should have shoot-out :)

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---