2. amps-preamps
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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
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,311 posts
 
Definitely a good idea to avoid underpowered amps, but even that is determined by the speakers.

I think if more people used amps powerful enough to bring out the best with the speakers they have, they would get off the speaker merry go round faster.

But again this is just another example of the importance of having a good match. It doesn't make the amp more important than the speaker.
inna
7,296 posts
 
Amps is an especially dear piece of equipment to audiophiles. Anyone can have excellent speakers and digital, but really great and well-matched amps is our territory.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,844 posts
 
My point is there are no rules that it must be a tube amplifier.

The market clearly supports my point.

Audiofeil, Well said by one who sells both tubes and transistors.

Both of us point to the market to support our positions.

In the end, it is the user who makes the rules (not you and not me), and if their rules say 'no transistor amps' (perhaps because they don't care for the sound of transistors) then the speaker must match. You make an excellent example of the Apogee- not the best load for a tube amp. So in this case, no matter how much one loves that speaker, it will be an exercise in frustration if the match between the speaker and the amp was not sought first.
stickman451
553 posts
 
Interesting comments by the 'amp' first camp, but unfortunately they are completely mistaken. As was said earlier, the speaker and the manner in which in interacts or integrates into the acoustic space is first and foremost. If that interface is flawed, then there is NO AMP on the planet that will correct the situation...

Analyze your room, it's dimensions, it's construction, and review the surface types of the floors, walls, and ceiling. Then, try a variety of speaker types, keeping in mind that you will not fill a huge room with sound using a mini-monitor, nor can your ears handle a monster box speaker in a small acoustic space...get the right speaker for your room taking into account the 'sound' you like...then, and only then, you can find an amp that works well. The speaker choice will in fact drive or move you towards a certain type or category of amplifiers...you won't use 500 Pass Labs mono-blocks if your speaker has a sensitivity of 100db and you won't use a 300B stereo amp on a pair of Magnepan 3.7's
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 
No one`s completely wrong. If a person decided he wants to try an SET,lower powered OTL or say a First Watt type amp, they would then just find an efficient speaker(there`s quite a few) to match the amp of choice. Let`s not make things artificially complicated.
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