05-23-14: Swampwalker
My own experience is that you do have to be somewhat concerned about hum and noise when you go to very high eff speakers; the higher eff the more careful you have to be....
Relevant to this point I see that the MA-1's description (under the "order" tab) indicates that the following are available:
Jumper plugs for high efficiency speakers -- Replaces tube in the voltage amplifier section of Atma-Sphere power amplifiers, thus reducing gain for high efficiency speakers. Recommended when efficiency of speaker is over 100.
As I indicated earlier the efficiency of the Ulysses is spec'd at 98 db/1W/1m, and I suspect that you won't have any issues with hum or hiss. But considering the high gain of your preamp I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility that you might find yourself operating the volume control undesirably close to the bottom of its range. In which case these jumper plugs would appear to be a solution.
Enjoy! Regards,
-- Al
