Who makes

^^ Cdc, its actually simple math. All speakers are driven by power and if the amp can make the power into the speaker the voltage and current will be exactly the same regardless of the amplifier.

Obviously there is more to it than that- what is going on here is how the amplifier responds to different impedances that will be present in any speaker at various frequencies.

The idea behind the Voltage Paradigm was essentially to deal with box resonance, which is represented by a large impedance peak in the bass region, usually just above the cutoff frequency of the woofer in the box. If you drive that peak with the same power as other frequencies, you will get a one-note bass boom. To control this effect and other issues associated with peaks and dips in the driver response and also due to the crossover, the Voltage Paradigm was created as a sort of standard for driving loudspeakers. You know how a transistor amp can double power as impedance is cut in half? The converse is true too- if you double impedance, the *power* is cut in half. that works nicely for controlling output when dealing with a resonance.

(In the Power Paradigm, the resonance is set up ideally to allow the amplifier to put out the power, but at a frequency that should result in extension of the bottom octave of the speaker's response. This allows a speaker of similar size to go deeper than a speaker designed for the Voltage Paradigm. In both cases, we are looking for flat frequency response, and it is possible that the Voltage Paradigm approach will result in flatter response in some cases. However, the brain has a tipping point wherein distortion will overshadow frequency response errors in its perception of coloration- IOW, a system that has flat frequency response may well sound more colored due to the types of distortion generated. This is why two amps might measure with identical frequency response, yet one might sound bright while the other does not. The Power Paradigm seeks to use this fact to audiophile's advantage while the Voltage Paradigm ignores it.)

Unfortunately, in 99 44/100 percent of all amplifiers, this means that they have to run negative feedback either to create linearity, to create a low enough output impedance or both in the amplifier.

Now that I think of it though, it seems to me that what you are interested in doing is getting a solid state amp that otherwise has the character usually found in tube amps- greater linearity, such that feedback is not required. There are a couple of amps you might look at. The first has been mentioned- Pass Labs. I *think* they may be offering zero feedback amplifiers with a little more power, that otherwise are considered Voltage Paradigm devices. The other amp is the Ayre.

It is not easy to build a reliable solid state amplifier that does not use feedback, which is why most designers don't bother. But Nelson and Charlie did- so you might want to give their amps a listen. That way you can use a Voltage Paradigm speaker and see what you think.

One reason why tubes have increased linearity over solid state has to do with the non-linear capacitive aspects that exist within the layers of almost any solid state output device (which tubes don't have). This non-linear aspect is magnified by current. This is why all solid state amps will have lower distortion and will sound better when driving higher impedance loudspeakers. Yes- they won't make as much power, but they will have more musical finesse. This is also why tubes are still very much in evidence half a century after being declared obsolete.

So you might consider a higher impedance speaker to go with the amplifiers I suggested. That will be giving you a good chance for the better sound within the constraints of solid state technology.

Cdc,

The specs on the full range speakers you use indicate response down to only 125hz.

I suspect most any good quality amp should be able to do a good job with those.

The biggest, clearest challenges where power paradigm comes into play is generally at frequencies lower than 125hz. That's because power requirements increase exponentially with lower frequency for flat response. With bass extension down to only 125hz, and with a very small 3" driver alone, there is likely much less room for amps to differentiate themselves based on power paradigm alone. Not to say they will all sound the same, but the differences may be much less in the case of your specific speakers.

So, its always a good idea to understand the technology involved, but I am just wondering how much practically power paradigm matters really in the case of the OPs current 3" full range speakers specifically.

If a speaker change/upgrade is in the plans at some point, even more reason to clearly understand the options as best as possible before pulling the trigger.

Is the current output more important than the voltage as that is what gives the speaker its dynamic range? What is voltage good for? It seems like a cheap way make the amp appear to be powerful when reading the specs.

voltage & current are duals of each other - where you will find voltage, you'll find current flow. The converse is also true - Where you'll find current, you'll find voltage. Voltage & current cannot exist without each other.
Think of voltage as electric pressure (old engineering texts had voltage as E) similar to water pressure. Current flows from higher electric pressure to lower electric pressure.
When an amp is delivering power into a speaker it's a combination of voltage & current. The voltage impressed (by the amp) at the speaker terminals causes current to flow in the passive x-over components. Depending on the various values of R, C, L in the x-over components, these respective components develop a voltage across them proportional to the music signal. This gets xferred to the speaker drivers. It's the voltage signal that causes pistonic movement in the speaker drivers & that produces sound. No voltage, no sound. So, voltage is good for a whole lot of things. How much current can be output from the power amp depends on how robust its power supply is. So, as Mapman suggested, not all watts are created equal in the sense that 2 100W amps might have vastly different power supplies. in such a case, the power amp with a more robust power supply will be able to drive a more difficult speaker load because it will be able to output more current into the difficult load to create a proportional-to-music-signal voltage for the speaker drivers.
Amps with a weaker power supply cannot drive difficult loads (yet it will still be a 100W/ch amp).

Thanks Bombaywalla,
This also explains why certain amplifiers rated at say for example 40 watts/channel can out drive another amp that's rated at 100 watt/channel . Power supply quality matters.

YEs, and most modern high quality speakers that are not large and use porting and other methods to deliver extended low end bass response out of a smaller package, as is popular with most these days, ARE difficult loads, even quality small monitor style speakers with top notch low end extension for their size.

COmbine that with a lot of the popular and low cost commercial amplification devices out there that also tend to emphasize many features in a small package that most can handle easily that use relatively small and inexpensive power supplies to deliver their watts as well and you have 90% of the reason why so many systems you hear normally have such mediocre sound, even if the speakers are in fact capable of much more.

Its like connecting a fire hose to a house spigot and expecting to be able to put out a house fire as well as the one hooked up to the high pressure (voltage), high volume (current) fire hydrant down the street.