Proac E.B.S Extended Bass Studio 3

I really enjoyed my EBS’s in the mid 80’s w/ a Really good Jadis preamp & Conrad Johnson Premier Four power amp ( 100 watts per side).  Some think it may be the best overall amp they ever made. Bass was pretty good but not super deep. Glorious midrange, nice high end, imaged beautifully & very dynamic. Very enjoyable overall. 

Thanks! Actually the sound in this provisory setup is not that bad . ATC SB75-234 woofer is not going that low anyway and specs on the speakers are 50-23kz _+ 2dB . As with all/most studio monitors they are little too aggresive on top in home enviroment. I spent a day on listening and swaped the tweeters for Hiquphon OWI which are evolution of moded (ferrofluid) Scan Speak D2008 used in Studio 3. Much more listenable now ;), also more spacious and detailed. I will have to borrow some more potent amps than 40 years old D-75A (although it's actually not that bad) to see if midbass will get some color. Now is a little gray and lacking but not terribly so. Nice to have half of Proac Response 4 at home .

I once had ProAc EBS in my system in the late 80s. While something like an ARC D76A sounded beautiful, you're right that an amp of that nature didn't yield good bass discipline with EBS. However, the tweeter is ruthlessly revealing of solid state harshness, so only exceedingly clean silicon amps have a chance of being satisfying. In solid state, Electrocompaniet and the McIntosh autoformer-output transistor amps of the past 10 years will do nicely, MC452 and above in the current Mac line.

HOWEVER, in tube amps, OTL is the ticket for this speaker. You need power so it has to be push-pull OTL. I used to power my EBS with Futterman OTL monoblocks. It was a sensational combination with impactful, well-defined and controlled bass. In today's market, I'd consider powering the EBS with Transcendent Audio's "The Beast" monoblocks, or one of the bigger Atmasphere amps.

Phil

I have EBS's, and have found to get any base they need solid state amps of 100+. Tubes which drive my Studio 140's do just find.