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RE: A straight wire with gain wouldn't work right with most speakers

Is it really true that most speakers prefer a voltage source, that halves power into higher impedance?

Yes.

Keeping the power roughly the same when the speaker impedance varies seems much smarter. Is my reasoning off somewhere?

Whether its smarter or not isn't the issue. Back in the 1950s EV and MacIntosh developed the Voltage drive rules since this allowed greater plug and play. If you wanted constant power with respect to impedance, you either ran a zero feedback tube amp, or one that had equal amounts of Voltage and Current feedback. There were tube amps made with 'damping' controls which allowed you to do exactly that, or have all current feedback (very high output impedance, often a multiple of that of the speaker) or all Voltage feedback (very low output impedance).

IOW the Voltage rules are what guides most speaker designs today. Tom Evans was simply incorrect in his statement; if the amp really was constant power he would have tonal anomalies on most modern loudspeakers.



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  • RE: A straight wire with gain wouldn't work right with most speakers - Ralph 10:33:40 05/27/25 (0)

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