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Tube-friendly speakers

I'm currently using a pair of Magnepan MMG's and a Hsu Sub along with my AES Six Pac amps. I'd like to move up to a larger set of Maggies, but it's been suggested that 60W of tube power would not be enough.

What are some speakers that would mate well with these amps? I do like the "planar sound". I'm most interested in something full-range, but could run a pair of monitors with my sub.
roblanger
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,616 posts
 
Silverline used to be tube friendly some years ago, but the current stuff is not. There are two design paradigms used in speakers, and the Silverline stuff now subscribes to the idea that an amplifier must be capable of constant voltage, regardless of load.

There is no tube amp that can do that.

BTW it is not important that the impedance curve be flat. It **is** important that the impedance curve be high enough, once it gets above a certain level, it can vary quite a bit without ill effect. FWIW, even if you have a transistor amp, the speakers with higher impedances are going to sound better because while many transistor amps can drive 4 ohms or less, that is not the same as saying that they are sounding their best. That comes with higher impedances. IOW there is no good argument for 4 ohms in high end audio, although there is for sound reinforcement.

4 of the speakers in Tvad's list seem to have been designed using OTLs- Audiokinesis, Coincident, Merlin and Classic Audio.

To add to the list of tube friendly speakers:
Quad 57 and 63, but not the later models
any 'full range' driver like a Lowther or PHY
all horns, with the exception of the AvantGarde Trio
High Emotion Audio
Vandersteen
Wilson Audio
Post removed 
jeffga
89 posts
 
Coincident Total Eclipse.....you get big sound (full range) low power tubes. This is a great speaker and very reasonable cost for world class performance. Can get for less than $4k here (used).
sns
3,003 posts
 
I agree that Merlins are very tube friendly, using them with 845 triode amp, sounds better than various push pulls I've tried. Still, I maintain the Alons/Nolas soundstage very similarly to planars, if this is important to you Alons/Nolas could be your answer.
roblanger OP
117 posts
 
Thanks for the recommendations, Gentleman :)

I am not at all familiar with some of these brands, but now I have a range of speakers to look into.

Atmasphere: I see that you listed the Vandersteen as being a possible candidate. I've heard mention of the way that they soundstage (planar-like?). Would the 2C (7 ohm / 86db) be a good mate?

How about the Dali's?
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