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Moving away from inefficient/low impedance speaker in order to move to a Tube Amp

I think this is talked about more on the amplifier side...tubes to solid state or vice versa. But as we all know, going with a  tube amp requires some effort in choosing the proper speaker. I have Harbeth C7's, which are a very nice speaker....but I'm not willing to spend the money on a high quality 100 watt tube amp. For those that have been in this scenario, please share some additional steps from your journey. Example 1: You had speaker A, but surprisingly found it worked fine with tubes...Example 2: You had speaker A, but it did not sing with tubes, so you found speaker B, and paired it with Tube amp C..... Cheers -Don

fjn04
johnk's avatar
johnk
1,975 posts
 

My Luxman 25 watt tube amps running a horn speaker with 2 x 21" woofers speakers are 4 ohms 103db 1 watt.

fjn04 OP
1,561 posts
 

jerryg123: Are you running your Qualiton X200 with KT 88, 120, or KT 150’s. Really nice setup, but your Prestige speaker is out of my price range for my second system. I bet they are wonderful though. Ralph...I think you’re right in that this bedroom system isn’t really for playing at loud levels. For a source, I may start out simple with a BlueSound Node to get things going. That would be my first streamer.

bassdude
495 posts
 

While I am impressed with the Klipsch Heritage line of speakers driven by tube amps... I'm equally impressed by the Harbeth line of speakers driven by the type of amps their designer (Alan Shaw) suggests drive them best - high powered SS amps, which best control their drivers (Hegel in particular)!  

I drive my Harbeths with the Hegel H590, but the other Hegel amps drive them equally well (H390 in particular)... and... they seem to be driven very well by the McIntosh MA252 or MA352 (tube/ss hybrids)!

If... you... don't want to totally disrupt your system.

oddiofyl's avatar
oddiofyl
3,826 posts
 

I'm driving my Forte IV with 40 watts of EL34 power in a smallish to medium room and its plenty of power .   It was plenty of power for my Revel M106 too as long as you didn't want to crank it too loud.  Not the best pairing but sounded great at normal to moderately loud levels 

I am having a 300b built and 8 watts should be plenty for my system and listening habits 

daveyf's avatar
daveyf
2,871 posts
 

Folks seem to forget one very important factor when choosing an amp, tube or ss, and that is the quality and ability of the transformer. This, IMO, has more to do with the drive capability than just about anything else. The amount of watts/ch is secondary to this aspect. This is the reason that a lot of well built lower powered tube amps with great transformers can sound as loud, or louder, than a much higher output ss device with a wimpy transformer, as an example.

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