Double down, good or bad?


I came across this article on Atma Sphere's website:

http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/myth.html

In short, Atma Sphere believes having a power amp that is capable of doubling its power when impedance is half is not necessarily a good thing because speakers in general do not have a flat impedance across all freq range.

On paper, it does make sense. Though I am sure speaker designers take that into consideration and reduce/increase output where necessary to achieve the flatest freq response, that explains why most of the speakers measured by Stereophile or other magazines have near flat responses.

But what if designer use tube amps to design his speakers, mating them with solid state should yield higher bass output in general? Vice versa, tube amps yield less bass output at home?

I have always been a tube guy and learned to live with less bass weight/impact in exchange of better midrange/top end. Will one be better off buying the same exact amp the speakers were "voiced" with, not that it will guarantee good sound, at least not to everyone's ear.
semi

Showing 4 responses by magfan

Semi, I worked in a FAB for 30+ yrs. Yep, moore's law SEEMS to apply. Any new technology will make such rapid progress at the beginning. I've worked from submicron to power devices, many places in between, started with evaporation and saw the start of semiconductor sputtering. Etch from all wet to dry. You name it.
As I'm sure you well know, there are theoretical limits to speed, density and even memory limits. What do you do after you have junctions a few angrstroms thick with linewidths to match? How do you implant that and not either overdrive and still have l effective?
Certainly there will be opportunities in the future. nano devices, and even superconductors may play a part, but once the 'low hanging fruit' is gone, the pace of density increase must slow, if not reach saturation.

To help you close your 'amp/speaker impedance interaction' problem, please look up Power Factor on google. The Wiki article will explain much.
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Also, since you are a semiconductor process (I hope) guy, you should be able to adapt over to the Smith Chart.


http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/component/content/article/228.html
voltage source / current source?

I wish I could find the link to the answer to Kirkus post.
This page called out an amp test to determine true output into real loads.
4 ohms / 8 ohms and 45degree inductive / 45degree capacitive.

The area under the square, when graphed properly will show load compatibility of the amp in question.

Most amps, except HT stuff and lowest tier consumer stuff do at least well into a resistive load. Throw in a reactive load to see what you really have.
Audioquest4life:
I see a few posts back that you state the Magnepans are a difficult load to drive.
Not So. The impedance is pretty flat and at least for the 1.6s, the phase angle is moderate at worst. The only fly in the ointment is they seem to like current.
That being said, even my old Rotel RB1070 of 130x2 into 8 with NO 4ohm spec did well until pushed.

Stereophile measures phase / impedance but few manufacturers publish such data.