mo' better bass: any substitute for watts?

Saki70, in the old days you did. Then transistors came along, and the industry figured out that it could charge almost the same money for the transistor amps, while in fact they were costing only about 1/10th as much. Suddenly power was cheap.

It was not long before the speaker manufacturers realized that they could take advantage of this, because they could make lower efficiency speakers that also cost about 1/10th as much to make. To make them seem more efficient, 4 ohm speakers began to appear.

Its all about money IOW. But- if sound quality is your goal, then 4 ohms is right out.

Atmasphere ;
So synergy is the only constant and wattage takes a backseat to circuit design for both amp and speaker . Is this a correct summation ?

Up for some more questions ?

Are global feedback , negative feedback , loop feedback , and zonal feedback all names for the same thing ?

How close to zero should we get ? I noticed that you offer up to 2? of feedback adjustability on your amps .

And what is your opinion of the use of 'autoformers' to achieve the higher speaker resistance that the amplifier will see ?

Thank you .

Saki70, I don't like the word 'synergy' as it suggests that we are going to balance one defect against another, and I think that in the case that we are talking about, the word is 'compatible' and the answer is 'yes'.

Loop and global feedback are the same thing. Zonal is usually the same as 'local' and may or may not be loop feedback, it could also be degenerative feedback. They are all forms of negative feedback, and there is a lot of verbal shorthand around, so you have to be careful.

I think what is important if you use feedback is that a) the amplifier must be fast and low distortion to begin with and b) the feedback be low enough that the odd-ordered harmonic enhancement is kept out-of-band. That really does not allow for very much feedback in practice.

The ZERO is the only autoformer I know of (we used to make a similar product called the Z-Music autoformer years ago). The concept is all about problem solving- this or that amp can't drive a speaker load that low so here's a solution to that problem. Given that that is the case, they work very well indeed. But if you had a 16 ohm speaker to start with that would be better :)

Yes , compatible may be a better term to use .

Not necessarily using the autoformer for problem solving ...

"The fact of the matter is no transistor amplifier sounds right on 4 ohms, nor does any tube amp. If you want to really see what either one is really capable of, you need a higher impedance -16 ohms is nice- to do that."

but trying to achieve maximum potential within a present 4 or 8 ohm setup , inexspensivly..."Its all about money". Could we hear an improvement with this usage ? And how would a 16ohm speaker operate on an amp that has 4 & 8 ohm speaker taps ?

We all have read where a higher db. rated speaker is an easier load to drive for lower powered amps such as SET's .
Where does the decibel rating figure into the rest of this discussion ? For instance would the higher resistance of a 16ohm speaker be able to counter the detriment of an 85db. rating ?

One heck of an informative thread here !

Thank you .

Atmasphere,

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights in this discussion.

My question is how can I tell by listening to a system whether use of negative feedback is having a noticeable negative effect on what I hear short of an a/b regression test between two comparable amp designs, one with and one without?

Also, as with most technology solutions, aren't some negative feedback implementations done better than others? Are there any that do it right to the extent that the negative effects are minimal or non existent?