Apogee Scintilla Power

Its really important to keep your speaker cables as short as possible when dealing with a 1 ohm load!! If ever there was an argument for balanced operation and monoblocks, this is it because you really don't want to have speaker cables be over about a foot or so unless they're 4 gauge or larger. The actual speaker connectors are important too as you simply don't want any DC resistances in series with the amplifier output.

There are a couple of Wolcott Presence amps on ebay (do a search) one is a stereo amp rated at 120 watts($3500) the other one are mono amps rated at 220 watts($3600) Ive heard that they work great with panel speakers but never listened to them except at a show (CES).Something to check out, TISH

Thanks for the Wolcott tip! While i am certainly a tube fan with some really great sounding older CJ tube amps i am going to try to make SS work for the Scintillas. Certainly much debate around which is better and attributes for each i value. The apogee ribbons really do respond to control which is why the H2O class D of Henry Ho’s is so highly regarded. I read somewhere that Bob Carver has some new tube designs set up for hard loads (like 1 ohm Scintilla). Something tells me this could be a really good option if within reach financially. 

Class D has to use a filter at the output to get rid of the switching noise. This filter has to be designed to accommodate a certain impedance. Pretty sure that 1 ohm is not a consideration. Most are set up for 4 ohms. Its not that the amp may not be able to drive the load, simply that the filter isn't set up to do its job on such a low impedance.

Having heard this speaker with tubes, 'control' isn't the issue. 

Good point on the Class D. Whatever Henry Ho created with his H2O amplifiers he definitely designed them to work with 1 ohm Scintillas. Cannot speak to the exact design elements. 

Control, was the wrong term regarding tubes on the ribbons.  I can say that when I biamp my Apogee Duetta signatures I use my CJ Premier 11a on the high end and it is an unbelievable combination. I wish the Premier 11A sounded as good on my, Scintillas. The Scintillas have a more complex ribbon for the high end which includes additional ribbons for midrange. Maybe just not enough power at 70wpc. Still have not given up with this approach for, Scintillas. Obviously with biamping with passive crossovers everything has to be gain matched.