We should reject hard-to-drive speakers more often

@phusis Wrote:

Overly damped (i.e.: "tight") bass isn’t natural bass to my ears, nor is the inverse scenario - it’s certainly about finding the right balance in relation to one’s (p)reference and context.

 Couldn't agree more! See article below:😎

Mike

http://diyaudioprojects.com/Technical/Papers/Damping-Damping-Factor-and-Damn-Nonsense-Floyd-Toole.pdf

I give you permission to reject hard to drive speakers, on my behalf. Keep up the good work.

Thinking about this thread for a while and I realize I should have inverted the headline.  What I wish I had written was:

We shouldn't praise speakers specifically because they are hard to drive.  A speaker that is discerning of amplifiers because it is hard to drive is not necessarily any good at playing music.

My bad.

in your experience ralph, when an autoformer is used to better couple tube amps with lower impedance speakers, is there a meaningful sonic penalty?

@jjss49 IME a tube amp often won't deal with low impedances, particularly something like 1 or 2 Ohms. In those cases, there are no tradeoffs- the autoformer makes it possible to drive the speaker where it was not possible before. Its when the speaker is a bit higher impedance (4 Ohms or slightly more) where you might encounter tradeoffs.

BTW this holds true for solid state amps as well. Even though they might easily double power into a lower impedance, that's not the same as saying they sound their best doing that- and you can also measure the increased distortion. Paul Speltz, the guy that makes the ZEROs, has a letter from Steve McCormick (who makes very competent solid state amps) that says exactly that: it sound better driving 4 Ohms thru the ZEROs than doing it directly, despite being able to easily double power into 4 Ohm from 8.

@atmasphere

i completely follow what you are saying... i actually used paul’s zeros years ago when i was trying to run maggies driven by roger mojeski’s rm9 tube amp... you are right, when the amp really can’t handle the load, the autoformer poses no tradeoff... its autoformer or no music...

i was curious on the sonic degradation if used on an easy to drive speaker

also, i had never thought of using them with solid state amps! makes perfect sense, the autoformer provides any amp with greater electrical 'leverage'  irrespective of amp type...  ok i am going to try to find those zeros in my storage closet this weekend, maybe i still have em!