Driving 1 ohm

For $2000, the H2O Audio Signature 100 can drive a 1 ohm load with no sweat. Hell, they can handle the vaunted Apogee Scintilla with absolute ease. There aren't too many (great sounding) and truly affordable power amp's that can make such a claim.

If I take the aforementioned Apogee Scintilla as a reference (straight 1 Ohm throughout the frequency spectrum) these are some of the amps that will drive them:

- Classé 400
- Krell 250
- Hafler XL600
- BAT VK-60 triode tube amps
- Sphinx Project 16
- Sphinx Project 26 mono amps

There are probably many more amps that will drive these kinds of loads, like the big Thresholds/Pass amps etc.

The Scintilla does not need a lot of power. We drove it very easily with a set of MA-1s and a set of our Z Music autoformers (we no longer make that product, but something similar is sold under the name ZERO). Its not normally a load that you would put on a tube amp but it worked great!

I have been using a Hafler 220/ bone stock built from a kit in 1979 to drive my Acoustat 2s.
It has never been touched and sounds fantastic.
That said I would like to go the tube route and I think that it could really reveal some magic,,,,with the right amp.
I have heard and read folks talking about low impedances but I know the "nominal" load for this speaker is 6 ohms.I understand that the lowest impedances occur in the extreme high frequencies, not the bass.
Also I read that current is the key to these speakers. So can someone explain to me why a tube amp is not what I want? Also, the original Acoustats had tube amps for transformers, so there must be something there.
thanks in advance

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The Acoustat 2s aren't supposed to drop below 3 ohms and only require over 50 watts. Maybe a fairly powerful tube amp will work fine with them. Hopefully you can try one before buying.