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 9 responses by unsound

Ralph, As much as I respect your opinions, I don't agree with the suggestion that amps that measure well don't sound good, and amps that sound good don't measure well. While I'm not suggesting that we have all the neccesary measurements to guarantee terrific sounding amps yet, I do suggest that we currently have the neccesary measurements measurements to guarantee that we don't make terrible sounding amps. Obviously the same token that keeps tube amps a marketable comodity, does the same thing for solid state amps.
The virtue of an amps ability to double down just might depend on the speakers on which the amp is to be used on and the amp budget of the owner of those speakers.
Rayoo makes a good point. Of course, and though it has been done before, one could argue that understating an amps power input into higher impedances is a misrepresentation and could potentialy void the warranty on a given speaker.
Gregm, perhaps I used the wrong words, what I meant was that the benefit of having and amp that's able to double down, just might depend on the speakers on which the amp is to be used on and the amp budget of the owner of those speakers.
Kirkus, how do the current dumping type amps like the Threshold Stasis designs fit into your thinking?
Kirkus, does this description help?:
http://www.stereophile.com/solidpoweramps/16threshold/index.html
Audioquest4life, with all due respect you are indeed "(still learning)". It would take a hell of a tube amp to appropriately drive some Apogee's.
Ralph, as I said, "it would take a hell of a tube amp...":-) Now if they were Scintillas, I'll recant my earlier post.
Ralph, sorry but to my mind that's cheating. Were the tube amps driving auto-transformers or Apogees?