Amps, and especially tube amps, do not perform sonically optimally as they’re pushed more toward their limits. But, that said, if you had the volume knob pretty cranked and were still enjoying the sound maybe that amp even working sub-optimally still works for you. Follow your ears.
Speaker Efficiency
I have been listening to my Decware 300b tube amp for a few months now. At 8 watts, I have them paired with Klipsch Forte IV at 99db efficiency, and this set up has been sounding great. This morning I connected a pair of Sonus Faber Electa Amator speakers, 6ohms at 88db of efficiency. They sound fantastic, with more weight and depth. I understand there is a huge price difference in the two speakers, but aside from that, if I am getting 80db of volume at my chair, 8' away, what is the draw back of using lower efficiency speakers with SET amps, so long as the volume is sufficient? I did notice turn the Pre amp, the tube amp and the Roon volume towards the highest setting, it starts sounding terrible....
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@jayctoy "Mark the 8w will not work on 88db on loud volume.."
A speaker with that efficiency will play at 88 dB with ONE watt. How loud do you think it would be with 5-6 watts? What? I can't hear you over the extremely loud music!. |
@OP - typical 300B amplfiers start to distort above the couple of watts of their rated output. 80dB is pretty loud so, at least on peaks, you will be hearing large amounts of harmonic distortion. As the distortion products are musically consonant, you may not find them objectionable. However, every 300B amp I've ever heard does sound very compressed when driven hard, albeit that this tends to be most noticeable with full range speakers where the most obvious effect is a loss of impact and control in the bass. However, if you like what you're hearing from the combination, then all is well. |
You may have a low quality alps volume pot ,just look it is a round silver can it is only 2 wipers with a contact spray , once it gets past a certain point it can start loosing resolution , where a resistor ladder type ,or rely much better ,also for that speaker the Sonus Faber go down to under 3 ohms you need much more power then that ,the Klipsch are a good fit ,I rebuilt a bunch Klipsch speakers the stock internal Xovers are very low quality ,even crites Xovers which were in it not that great the Xover is the ♥️ of the speaker ,having owned a Audio store and modding my own Xovers and others for years ,,if you plan on keeping the Forte then I highly recommend doing this even theForte 4 cheap Xover parts , once upgraded sounds much more detailed and refined in another league. the Sonus Faber too could use better Xover parts just unscrew the Bass driver , and look inside , Thst speaker needs a EL34 pentode amplifier . please remember if pushing a speaker peaks can hit 10 x more on peaks ,that’s why it’s so e important to match the amp to the speaker . |
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