Of course a call to Martin Logan company might answer your question with more degree of accuracy.
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Tube Amp for Martin Logan Speakers
03-28-14: Mapman It will work into that load, but will be "as JA put it" "shelved down in the treble in this instance". This "could" give you the initial impression of a sweeter treble. In otherwords it will do the classic thing that can happen with low current or high output impedance tube amps "behave like a fixed tone control" instead of being flat into all loads. This is where the Zero can be a bandaid fix, but I always believe it's better to fix the problem, by changing the amp or speakers to something that are compatible with each other, than to mask the problem by introdcing a pseudo fix that has it's own set of problems. Cheers George |
Mapman, I just noticed that you have class D amps as powerful as they are don't think they are out of the woods when it comes to driving ESL's Their achilees heel is driving low impedances in high frequencies, they behave in a similar fashion. Just look at the black trace that is the frequency response of the Belcanto Ref1000 driving a simulated speaker load, see how it goes all wonky, it should be flat, and that load is no where near as severe as an ESL load in the HF. http://www.stereophile.com/content/bel-canto-ref1000m-monoblock-power-amplifier-measurements Cheers George |
So my sense is to consider the full impedance curve, not just a static number. Maybe that is where "all other matters" are not equal. That is certainly part of it! There is a reason some speakers are considered 'difficult loads' and that is never a good thing as far as the amp is concerned. The OP was about tube amps that can drive ML ESLs. The issue here is that ML has been really trying hard to make their speakers work better with transistors, which is not easy to do, because ESLs want constant power and transistors are constant voltage (see http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php. I'm pretty sure I explained all this earlier- a lot earlier: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1394129996&openflup&11&4#11 But if you have a set of ZEROs, its pretty easy, then its just about whether you have enough power, not whether the amp is comfortable with the load. Seems to me 60 watts will make most MLs play reasonably well. |