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Amp more important than speakers?

The common wisdom seems to be the opposite (at least from speaker makers), but I have tried the many speakers that have come thru my house on lesser amps or my midfi A/V receiver and something was always very wrong, and things often sounded worse than cheap speakers.
On the other hand, I have tried many humble speakers on my my really good amps (& source) and heard really fine results.

Recently I tried my Harbeth SHL5s (& previously my Aerial 10Ts, Piega P10s, and others) on the receiver or even my Onkyo A9555 (which is nice with my 1985 Ohm Walsh 4s, which I consider mid-fi), and the 3 high end speakers sounded boomy, bland, opaque.

But when I tried even really cheap speakers on my main setup (Edge NL12.1 w/tube preamp) I got very nice results
(old Celestion SL6s, little Jensen midfi speakers).

So I don't think it's a waste of resources to get great amplification and sources even for more humble speakers.
My Harbeth SHL5s *really* benefit from amps & sources that are far more expensive than the Harbeths.

Once I had Aerial 10Ts that sounded like new speakers with vocals to die for when I drove them with a Pass X350 to replace an Aragon 8008.

Oh well, thanks for reading my rambling thoughts here...

So I think I would avoid pairing good speakers with lesser amps,
rgs92
plato
1,543 posts
 
Weseixas, I agree, I think some of the Onkyo amps/receivers sound quite good, which is what prompted me to put it in the system in the first place and now I'm glad I did.

I also want to say that my slant is that the loudspeaker should be matched to the room first and then the proper amp to drive that speaker in its intended acoustic environment can be sought (based on the speaker load, sensitivity, and how loud the owner wants to play his/her music in the particular room).
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mjglo
127 posts
 
Elizabeth, the 50% rule applied in an age when we bought speaker cable at the hardware store and used cheap RCA interconnects that came with the gear.
I look for speakers first to "voice" my room and I agree that you can get better results with a great speaker and budget amp rather than a great amp and budget speaker, there are limits to this thinking though.
In my system, Focal 1037 speakers mate well with a Krell 2250 amp. If I upgeaded the amp to higher end monoblocks the sound of the speakers would not change that much, but if I upgraded the speakers with my same amp, I'd say there would be more of an improvement.
You should budget your system to get the most out of it, I'm not big on amps but pay more attention to the front end and cabling.

Mike
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
You know what they say in baseball: Great pitching will always beat great hitting, and vice-versa!

The right $1K amp (e.g., Odyssey Khartago) could sound fabulous powering Wilson Sasha WPs, but then so could Cary tube monoblocks powering some Paradigm mini-monitors.

Every time I think I find a good rule of thumb, there's always something else to discredit it. Right now I'm enjoying the sounds of a 1981 Heathkit AA-1600 amp (bought today for $219) powering a $2500 pair of Mirages. HOWEVER, this Heathkit is not your ordinary $200 amp. It performs at least like a $2K power amp, maybe more. Definitely a notch or more above a new Adcom.
rockvirgo
587 posts
 
Yep, the combinations are endless. Crap in, crap out.

The best amp choice advice I ever read came in the owners manual with a pair of new KEF Q-90's. Here's a blurb from the current recommended amp FAQ from KEF's website: As a general rule buy the most powerful amplifier that you can afford within the specified range and use it with great care.

Once you accept that idea, all other amps are by definition misfits.
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