Amp matching with high sensitivity speakers

I'm definitely in the low watt amp/high sensitivity speaker camp.  I don't know if you're looking at tubes but that is certainly a popular option and the one I like.  I googled your speakers and my speakers are 96 dB just like yours. 

I am currently driving them with a Sophia Baby tube amp that I picked up on ebay as an interim solution while waiting for my new amp (Ayon Spark Delta, 35 wpc).  

Unless you have a huge room and like to blast your ears, the Sophia is more than enough.  I've never had it turned up even close all the way.  It is extremely detailed, transparent, and imaging.  I've seen one for sale lately for $550 or so and I would highly recommend it as an amp to play around with while you do your research and since you are questioning if this is the right way to go, its a very inexpensive way to hear the capabilities of this type of system.   Frankly, if the Sophia had a remote and a pre-in connection, I might not even upgrade it.  I've compared it to $5k ss amps and it wasn't even close.

Jerry

Sophia Electric does make a sweet sounding pair of 300B mono amps. Keepers 

You’ll be fine. Unlike most audiophile speaker makers, Klipsch also has to serve the Bud Light party bros and home theater nuts who will absolutely THRASH their speakers at absurd volume levels. That warning and its very conservative amp power recommendation is intended for them, not you and I - proper 2ch audiophiles 😉

The risk with clipping from too little power is specific to the tweeters, which are normally designed & spec’d to handle MUCH LESS peak and continuous power than woofers. The tweeters are protected by a high-pass crossover plus the fact that most power in musical content resides in the lower frequencies. However at instances of hard clipping (especially with SS amps), the clipped content has peaks which measure at TWICE the max continuous power rating of your amp and at very high frequencies to boot. This effectively goes right through the high-pass filter (because it’s comprised of high frequencies, even if for a very short instant) and sends these power peaks directly into the tweeter. That’s bad, and this is why clipping is considered a tweeter killer. It also sounds like SH*T and hurts your ears badly because high frequency content at such high levels is extremely unnatural.

But the reality is that your 100+ dB speakers will make your ears bleed long before you hit hard clipping with any amp north of say 10 Watts. Also, if you choose a tube amp or a single (which is more likely at lower power classes), it will naturally soften the clipping a bit, which reduces the peak power sent into tweeters. Also the First Watt amps, being class A without much (if any) global negative feedback, should likewise feature more gradual clipping (I think). So I wouldn’t worry about it!

Hey @carlsbad, I would like to find a low cost, low

powered to experiment with and appreciate you suggesting the Sophia Baby Tube amp. Do you know if it has a line level input? I need to have a remote and if I can hook my preamp to it that would work. Thanks @mulveling for

the explanation. Speaker technicals are not my forte and what you’re saying makes sense to me. It makes sense to me that underpowered amps would work with high sensitivity amps but should I be concerned about using a 300 watt amp with these speakers? Cause of my living environment I can’t play too loud. Everything has sounded fine with the Levinson but wonder if moving down a few watts will help protect the speakers and perhaps provide better sound. 

The speaker specs you want to know is the sensitivity and freq range . In theory the higher the sensitivity, the lower the wattage needed. . I run a Bob Latino ST 70 (Dynaco clone) with a 93.5 Sensitivity speaker and it sounds great.  I liked it enough to buy it's custom made Big Brother, Don Sachs Kootenay 120. These are tube amps with one rated 35 wpc, the other 65wpc.

The smaller of the 2, about $1500 complete. Bob's ST 120 $1800. Great amp