Amp play a low volumes?

jcd; it's been my experience that it is not the amp that is the limiting factor in making music sound good at low volume, but rather it's the speakers. And I don't think speaker sensitivity has much to do with it either.

For example, My Vandersteen 3As or 3Asigs both sounded very good at low volumes and I enjoyed that, but I recently (5 months ago) acquired Vand. 5s, and the 5s have to be driven at distinctly louder volume to sound good. The 3As and 5s have about the same sensitivity. I have read where reviewers have noted this phenomenon too. I think it has to do with the design of the speaker. As the 5s continue to breakin, they are now sounding better at lower volumes, but still must be played louder to sound good. Good Luck. Craig.

Generally, lower power amps (around 20 watts) sound better than higher powered amps at low volume levels. Most of the time these amps are tubed and sound "alive" at low volume levels unlike solid state amps which tend to go dead. The only exception to this that I know of is the 47 Labs Gaincard, although a pure class A (Pass Labs) may have this characteristic.

Also, as pointed out in the above post, speakers are very important. Electrostatics have excellent low level resolution as do hybrids (ribbon with dynamic cones). Speaker design is also very important, but it seems that bigger speakers do not resolve as well at low volumes as do their smaller driver counterparts. Driver size may have something to do with this.

Garfish, I had something different happen over here. My speakers are 88db sensitivity and didn't have much imaging at low volumes with 60W of tube power. When I moved up to 120W of tubes in Ultralinear I was able to listen at very low volumes with good imaging. This put a smile on my face :)

Hi Buckingham; FWIW, I used a big McCormack DNA-2DX Rev. A (600 wpc 4 OHM) with both the Vand. 3As as well as the Vand. 5s. The 3As sounded quite good at low volume, whereas the 5s don't. As noted above, as the 5s continue to breakin, they are sounding better at low vol. levels, so maybe it's just going to take some time.

I owned/used an SF Power 2 110 wpc tube amp for awhile, and found that it needed to be played distinctly louder than the McCormack with the the 3As to make them sound decent. So the amp/speaker interaction is important too. Cheers. Craig.

My experience is that systems ( primarily speakers ) that tend toward warmth sound better at low volumes. This is probably due to how our ears work and perceive tonal balance at different volume levels. This is also why "mid-fi" gear comes with a "loudness" control.

I agree that very low powered amps ( primarily SET's ) or high bias, hot running SS amps will sound best at low listening levels. Sean
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