GMA Europa owners, what amps do you use?

Hi guys-
Appreciate knowing about what you think works well. Thank you!

About the powers recommended by me:
70W tubes, 120W solid state. Yes.
In my experience, this is not unique to Europas, and I think it is useful to know how we (and others) arrived at those power levels for an 88-89dB sensitive speaker.

These 70/120W into 8 Ohm ratings are necessary to supply the Peak output for listening at loud, lifelike levels at 11 feet away, in a moderately-dead room with good carpet, from reference recordings having the highest peak-to-average ratios, at the altitude here, into a 4 Ohm speaker.

If you listen 8' away- cut those values in half, for your LOUDEST peaks on those reference recordings.
If you listen to compressed recordings, at 8 feet, cut those powers by 75%. Most recordings are compressed, which is intentional, essential, for us to enjoy them at average SPLs.
If your room is fairly live, make that 85%
And that's at our 6500' elevation. For most listeners who live where there is actually air, knock off another third from that final value.

Which means 70/120 becomes 10/20Watts. Peak. In Pittsburgh, at 8 feet away, for James Taylor (Etta James- make that 30/50 peak), in a quiet room having an average residential RT-60 decay, for what most folks consider "fairly loud": the low 90dB range on the Radio Shack meter, peak.
For reference recordings, 40/60 seems plenty. Peak, into 8 Ohms on fast transients, at 8' away in Pittsburgh, for this 4 Ohm loudspeaker.

Have a look at the power supply. Into 4-6 Ohms, many tube amps act like they have more power-supply-related "oomph" than than the same RMS-power SS amps. At least those below a 70W rating. I'm no expert- is this indeed the difference for my 70W and 120W recommendation? Any amplifier designers who'd enlighten us?

How do some listeners get away with 7-10 W tube amps on speakers of average sensitivity?
Because they are less than 7 feet away, and have very little background noise from the world outside.
Because their system and speakers are broken in really well.
Because the gear was chosen for its purity and clarity at very soft levels
(which seems easier for tube amps than SS, $for$).
Because they have cleaner electricity (late at night).
Because using this system, they have re-learned what it is to hear very quiet sounds, training mind and body to hear and feel everything musical at soft SPLs- under 85dB peak, including their reference recordings. Which is a few watts/channel. Where most amps are still in their class A mode, fortunately.

Try to audition an amp late at night, and run through as much music as you can, at very soft and very loud volumes, besides "your normal volumes". If it is a better amp, every recording would be improved at every loudness. Live with the amp for a week, don't think about it, then replace it- as valid as listening to one song then changing it, but often leading to different impressions.

Reference recordings with high peak-to-average ratios include direct-to-disc Harry James LPs, "Jazz at the Pawnshop", Christian McBride's "Gettin' To It" CD or Clark Terry's "Live at the Village Gate" (Chesky), some Allison Krause or early David Grisman, "Far More Drums" from DMP label, the Reference Recording CDs/LPs of the Turtle Creek Chorale, the old Mercury and RCA classical re-issues.

There are many more, but you have to look at the recording info sometimes to tell. Folks are often delighted with the apparently wide dynamic range of Dire Straits- yet it is compressed and greatly peak limited, especially on the drums. Their expertise in the studio, like that of Prince, Sting, Alan Parsons, Fleetwood Mac, Rush, Supertramp, Tina Turner, Cher, Elton John, Tori Amos, Neil Young, Brooks and Dunn, most new-age music engineers, makes compression and limitng an impressive sound.

Best,
Roy

Thanks for the email copy. I still stand by that advice- my answers above on Power are more explicit.

And Pete is not a wild man- he's just being Pete. There can only be one.
We all use up a lot more power, very quickly unfortunately, when we finally decide to play it LOUD, listening 15+ feet away.

If we just start to clip any amp, often we don't notice that at first, in some speakers because they are not clear (agile) enough. And in the Europas, in my opinion, this is because they don't "hold onto" an amp's clipping distortion- the actual onset of clipping is not magnified by them (its duration extended).
Any brief hardness/harshness from the amp remains brief because A) it does not trigger some particular cone resonance, etc. and B) because the time-coherent design keeps the packet of energy concise, if you will.

So then, if you don't hear what you think is clipping, it seems ok to take it up another full notch, to put the hammer down, because we say it's ok. But clipping any amp, or peak power levels exceeding 80W into 8 Ohms on compressed rock, means the tweeter will eventually go. Just like racing a sports car- new tires every race. About $30 for a re-tread here, per cab.

One can hear the clipping of course, if you know the recording and then take the loudness up very, very, very, very slowly, until you hear the amp just start to haze the image, then hear compress the depth, then finally rat-out the leading edges ever so slightly, but only on just one particular 'yelp' from the voice... sounds like a brief mic or mic-preamp overload (like an old doo-wop recording), except.. it goes away with a few dB decrease in the volume.

This is not the speaker distorting, because speakers, of any kind, seldom "clip" harshly- they just gradually compress the dynamics, then finally hard-limit (clip) in the woofer's stroke (or fuzz out at large excursions), or the tweeter finally blows up.

The gradual-compression effects in speakers are just that- gradual. They do not "go away" because you reduced that slowly-increased loudness by 3dB (half the power). Nor do you hear THE problem of image diffuseness, hardness on the voice, etc "come back" because you went back up by just one dB.

Hope I said that clearly- sorry if you have to re-read that. It's a linearity issue. Speakers and amps have different ways of leaving their linear behaviour regions. It's why an amp designer can tell the size of a power supply on just about any speaker at only modest SPLs. The departure from linearity he has trained himself to hear from a transformer is different that what speakers "always" do to the sound. He's also heard a lot of speakers.

So you miss the fact that the amp is starting to clip on rock, or loud R&B, etc. Because you don't care, because you don't know the recording that well yet. So you crank it on up one more full notch and leave it there- then the tweeters eventually die in the Europas, because you are near 100dB AVERAGE levels at 8 feet away. Which means pounding loud at that distance, yet merely "pretty darned loud" at fifteen feet, especially if the room is not a lively one.

It is always instructive to borrow a high-horsepower amplifier, even if you know it will be rougher-sounding than what you have, just so you know what happens from having the large power-supply capacity available on a moment's notice.

The Europas can handle peaks, briefly, to 120W into 8 Ohms, midband, like a snare drum whack, which at 8 feet away, is about twice as loud as most people think as being LOUD. Close to "my friends up on stage at 20 feet away- can't hear you right now!" loud.

Which in some societies is considered fun.

Best,
Roy

Phasecorrect- I will be looking into that. If we were to change the tweeter, the circuit mods may be ones that you can't get your hands in to perform (nor could we). The woofer stays the same.

One would have to knock out the old crossover circuit (via a block and hammer), from which we could salvage maybe $25 of parts, with a half-hour to strip those out, and a few bucks credit for getting the old tweeters back. Two new circuits with tested, matched tweeters would be ~the price differential to the new speaker. Plus a fair amount of install work at your end. And it still wouldn't have all the improvements.

At the moment, it would seem selling `em to a buddy and getting the new ones would be the best way to have a comprehensive upgrade. But I will look into it.


Pete- congrats on the new baby! You'll be a great dad.
You are entirely right about listening "habits". We do what we need to do. Remember, the middle-ear bones are bridged by a small muscle that contracts to protect against loud sounds. This changes much of your hearing.

Listen loud and long with some good wine, and the muscle stays locked up, then relaxes some, as your mind eventually says "nothing here to worry about, ok?" But it still never relaxes completely.

During that contracted phase (like after a concert), several things happen:
Your threshold of hearing has been raised (friends need to yell at you),
the tone balance changes (for less bass and highs),
dynamic inflections are not as strong (less subtleties, and "big" changes need to be "bigger"),
the body takes over "feeling" the bass, because you are vibrating different parts of it more and more,
the pitch of the song rises (for psychoacoustic and/or mechanical/biological reasons).

So you are shocked the next day. Just don't do that every evening, and chances are your hearing won't suffer too much beyond what you lose with age, and by living in a city instead of in the country, in my experience.

But if you blow things up, we have parts. So proceed onwards, Mr. Whitley. Dad. Mr. Mom?

Just don't expose the little one to even a moderately loud TV program for extended periods (like an hour) if you can avoid it, ok? But you will expose him/her to music, right?

Have a good weekend y`all!

Best,
Roy

Hi Phasecorrect-
I don't want to use the Audiogon forum for marketing purposes.
We will release info, available by direct e-mail from me, in another 10-12 days.
Hope you understand!
Best,
Roy

Hi John-
We are still shipping/catching up on the last orders of the current Europa to dealers. We are working on a replacement, but I need to wait a little longer before announcing the details- thanks.

The difference is clarity more than in musicality, I'd say.

The replacement's higher price finally reflects the increased parts costs we have been sitting on for more than a year, and the extra labor we found we could never get away from when finishing the marble. And petroleum prices (the resin and the shipping). And the weakness of the dollar. And since this isn't a forum for marketing...


Several customers called me about the Cayin integrated amp out of the blue, to say how absolutely pleased they were. Collectively, they had heard a lot of amplifiers over several years each, and from what they talked about, I have little doubt that it is special.

I have used tube amps of many brands, of that power rating and less, and if I am in
A) within 12 feet of the speakers, AND
B) not in an overly-dampened, non-resonant room (a heavily-carpeted basement with low, treated ceiling),
then this Cayin will be enough power for most any music, at all but the loudest levels. And probably even at the loudest levels, given your 8' listening distance.

Next best $$ after that, IMO:
Put Audio Magic Sorcerer interconnects on it and give them about 300 hours together with varied music.
Use Black Diamond cones under CD player.
Also, seems like importer has tube advice/mods???

In the second-to-last paragraph above, I said "Most any music.. at all but the loudest levels". This does does not conflict with my advice about high power and loudness above. This is about being with the music everyday, and this amp should be great from what I hear.

On the best gear here, it is really easy to hear when the rhythm section pushes the tune forward, just a little, and when it pulls it back, just a little, etc. Things in the music you've heard live that make it fun, but you kind of forget about when casually listening (if not, you'd throw the car radio out the window).

Anyway, I do hear that swing to the music from a lot of small tube amps, notably ones of good, strong power-supply- which I understand is in the Cayin. This also includes those amps in the list Dubzilla published above (that's my list).

I'd like to know what you hear! And from more owners, of course.

Best,
Roy

Tcbannon-
Let me know what amp you settle with, and why, someday- thanks.
Sounds like you are listening for all the important things.
Best,
Roy

Kclone-
Try contacting telescopetrader here on Audiogon (is there an underscore in that word?)- he had the Spectron amp (still does have?) and has had Europas on it and other amps for quite a while now. Perhaps he can tell you more about the 500 hour differences.

Personally, I know they continue to get better- clearer, less mechanical, more gentle when called for, as you pass the 500 hour mark. If you listen everyday, as we do, you hear the improvement. If you listen only a few times a week, it might be hard to tell any improvement after that 200 hour mark.

I'm enjoying hearing about all these amplifiers. Thanks! We can't get much new gear here in Colorado. Have to order it from the Sears and Roebuck catalog, it seems.

Best regards,
Roy