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How do you drive 12 Ohm speakers?

Lately I took home a pair of great looking and very impressive sounding Crystalvox (small russian brand) speakers. The speakers are big, use 3 8 inch woofers and have incredibly smooth highs. The problem is that they are rated 12 Ohm nominal and 8 Ohm minimal. With McIntosh the bass is rather loose. I put on my Mac 6900 on 8 Ohm and while I like the sound overall I can't help but wonder - what kind of amps do people usually use with 12 Ohm speakers?
antonkk
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,922 posts
 
This sounds like a very easy speaker to drive! The specs indicate that it favors tubes. You do need some power, as the efficiency is upper 80s/lower 90s.

-Ralph
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br3098
997 posts
 
Antonkk, do you read Russian or is there an english translation page?
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,922 posts
 
Bob_reynolds, its pretty easy when you've been doing for a living. If you look at the speaker, it is 12 ohms in the woofers and 8 ohms in the mids and highs. I had to surf their website a bit to figure out what speaker it is and it did not hurt to have someone on staff that knows a little Russian.

Anyway, an impedance curve like that is easy for tubes in general.
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