We should reject hard-to-drive speakers more often

Geez @mrdecibel, my post above (or at least it’s last sentence) WAS offered in the spirit of lightening up. Too subtle?

I can't believe I am asking this question: Do you actually take @kenjit seriously?!

Fortunately for we humans, distortion of lower frequencies isn’t as audible/objectionable to our ear/brain mechanism as is distortion of higher frequencies. Right, Ralph? Since the beginning of hi-fi and continuing to this day, woofers commonly produce 10% (and higher) harmonic distortion. If a tweeter produced that much distortion it would be unlistenable.

If only @kenjit would put into production one of his perfect loudspeaker designs. The selfish sob is keeping them all to himself.

@wolf-garcia: Well whatta ya know, someone else who considers John DeVore a smug, sanctimonious kinda guy! I haven’t heard any of his speakers (which may sound great; Art Dudley, Ken Micallef, and Steve Guttenberg certainly thought/think so), but they sure don’t appear to be priced according to the industry-standard price-of-parts X 7. I guess DeVore considers his time much more valuable than that of mere mortals.

In the literature for his Eminent Technology LFT-8 loudspeaker, designer Bruce Thigpen states he can make his LFT driver any impedance he wants, and chose 11 ohms (when implemented in his LFT-8 loudspeaker, the complete speaker---with dynamic woofer---becomes an 8 ohm load). That’s why the LFT-8 is a better choice for tube amp lovers than Maggies (at least in terms of the issue of impedance). Maggies are a 3-4 ohm loudspeaker, not good for most tube amps (the Music Reference RM-200 being a notable exception). I cite Maggies and the LFT-8 together as both are planar-magnetic loudspeakers.

However, both the ET LFT-8 and Maggies are very low in sensitivity. The older Maggies (.6 series) could be bi-amped, a good way to address low sensitivity: use a brute force amp on the woofer, a refined one on the midrange and high frequency drivers. .7-series Maggies can not be bi-amp, at least not without internal surgery (the crossovers are series, unlike the parallel used in the .6-series). The LFT-8 can easily be bi-amped (it comes fitted with separate woofer and LFT panel binding posts).

When in 1974 I read Ivor Tiefenbrun’s philosophy of the hierarchy of a hi-fi system being that the first component in the chain is the most important, the second is the second most important, etc. etc. etc., I knew he was full of sh*t. OF COURSE the second can only reproduce the signal it receives from the first (garbage in/garbage out), but there’s more to it than that simplistic, obvious fact. One astute UK reviewer (Ken Kessler?) mockingly proposed a system composed of a Linn table/arm/cartridge, Naim pre-amp and power amp, and a string leading to a pair of tin cans for speakers. Get it? ;-)

Pickups/cartridges and loudspeakers---being transducers---are FAR more variable in sound than are, for instance, pre-amps. And loudspeakers sound RADICALLY different from one another. Power amps? Not nearly as much. Choosing your loudspeaker first, and then finding a good power amp to drive them, is obviously the correct (okay, best) way to assemble a system. To do the opposite is just ridiculous. IMO, of course. ;-)

Recording engineers choose their microphones for each mic’s particular sound characteristics. And what is a microphone? Why it’s a transducer, of course (mics operates in exactly the opposite way as do pickups/cartridges). If you think the engineer’s mixing console (electronics) is more responsible for the sound of his recordings than are his microphones, may I respectfully suggest that you don’t know sh*t?  No offense intended.

Damn @ericsch, again! I too got a C-26, along with the MC2100, which was the version of the 2105 without meters. $499 vs. $649, iirc. $150 doesn’t sound like much now, but back then I guess it was! From there is was onward and upward: an ARC SP-3 and D-51 and D-75 amps, with Maggie Tympani’s. By 1972 Sound Systems was no longer pushing SAE and Infinity, but rather the hipper ARC and Magneplanars.

Yeah, San Francisco was (is?) a great town for seeing live music (but then so are L.A., NYC, and Austin). I saw the first appearances of Cream, Hendrix, and Jeff Beck, plus all the old guys Bill Graham booked into his venues, like Albert King.

With my musical tastes I kinda wished my Dad had stayed at Lockeed Aircraft in Van Nuys (he transferred to Lockheed Missiles & Space in Sunnyvale)---I then coulda seen Buffalo Springfield, Love, and all the other SoCal groups/bands emerging at the same time the hippie bands were up North. I saw The Dead and Airplane in ’67, but they’re not really my kinda thing.

@ericsch: Small world! In 1071 I heard the 2000A at the same shop in Palo Alto: Sound Systems was it's name. They were running all their speakers (including the Infinity Servo-Static I's) with SAE electronics.The 2000A used a number of the wonderful RTR ESL tweeters, and were far more transparent that the AR 3a and Rectilinear III's I had been considering. I didn't have the $$$ for the 2000A, so got the 1001 instead. A year later I heard the Magneplanar Tympani T-I (also at Sound Systems) powered by ARC electronics, and it was a new world ;-) .

@fikki: The MG3.6 can easily be bi-amped (unlike the series-crossover .7 series Maggies, the .6’s have parallel crossovers). Use a brute amp on the bass drivers, your D-70 on the midrange/tweeters. In almost all loudspeakers, the majority of the power goes to the woofers. Take the bass out of your amp (with a high-pass filter), and you will then have far more power for the mids and highs.

A good way to make any given loudspeaker an easier load is to remove the low frequencies from both it and the power amp driving them. Yes, a separate woofer/subwoofer for 80 or 100Hz down. Most of the power demands of many loudspeakers is used to reproduce low frequencies. Remove them from the loudspeaker and power amp and both will be happier, and sound better.  

Erik: Very much agree about Infinities. I had a pair of the RS-1b’s, which so many people think were/are great. Anyone thinking about getting a pair: be prepared to have them reconditioned. Many of the EMIT and EMIM drivers are now unusable, having been manufactured to pretty low standards. Bruce Thigpen’s Eminent Technology LFT drivers made at the same time as the EMIT and EMIM drivers remain in perfect working condition (I have LFT-4’s made back then). And as you say, the crossovers are junk. But that’s true of the crossovers in most loudspeakers! Maggie owners: pull off the plate on the back of your speakers and look at what the signal is passing through!!

When I read about the Apogees I became instantly uninterested; who wants to have to listen to a Krell amplifier? ;-)

Erik, guess you don't like Maggies, Apogees, Infinity IRS, or Wilson WAMM?---Eric.