Amp/Int. Amp to smooth the highs...


...okay, so here is the story...i just purchased a pair of great sounding speakers...i placed them in my rig and they do everything amazingly well, but the top tend to be a little bit screechy (i can live with it, but maybe can be fixed) from time to tome...well, my preamp/amp are not screechy as they proved with the old speakers...so, me thinks i might need another amp or int. amp to replace the amp and the preamp to "mellow"a little bit hte highs but still with great bass, soundstage, midrange, etc...is anything out there?...my current system Audiomeca Keops, Innersound preamp, Innersound ESL amp, and Innersound Isis just replaced by Usher 719xspeakers...

thanx
iasi

Showing 2 responses by audiokinesis

Iasi -

Your current speakrs are Usher 719's? I couldn't find any information on them...

Okay, you might try this: Wire a 16-ohm, 25-watt resistor across the speaker terminals (if bi-wire capable, then across the high frequency inputs). Just tighten the binding posts down on the leads of the resistor. You can vary the resistor value by ear, between maybe 8 and 100 ohms in large (50%-ish) increments. This may well smooth the highs a bit, depending on what the speaker's impedance curve is like. Without knowing the impedance curve I can't predict what the effect will be, but the InnerSound amp can drive very difficult loads so that won't be a problem.

It is unlikely that the problem is amplifier clipping - that's a very powerful amp.

If you want to address the problem by changing amplifiers then I suggest you consider tubes, perhaps Conrad-Johnson or JoLida. I'm a dealer for the latter. If you decide to stick with solid state, then try a used Pass Aleph amp of appropriate wattage. But trying a few resistors is a lot less expensive.

Duke
Gunbei -

Paralleling the tweeter with a fairly large resistor will actually lower the impedance that the amp sees, and will also smooth the impedance out out a bit.