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Amp more important than speakers?

The common wisdom seems to be the opposite (at least from speaker makers), but I have tried the many speakers that have come thru my house on lesser amps or my midfi A/V receiver and something was always very wrong, and things often sounded worse than cheap speakers.
On the other hand, I have tried many humble speakers on my my really good amps (& source) and heard really fine results.

Recently I tried my Harbeth SHL5s (& previously my Aerial 10Ts, Piega P10s, and others) on the receiver or even my Onkyo A9555 (which is nice with my 1985 Ohm Walsh 4s, which I consider mid-fi), and the 3 high end speakers sounded boomy, bland, opaque.

But when I tried even really cheap speakers on my main setup (Edge NL12.1 w/tube preamp) I got very nice results
(old Celestion SL6s, little Jensen midfi speakers).

So I don't think it's a waste of resources to get great amplification and sources even for more humble speakers.
My Harbeth SHL5s *really* benefit from amps & sources that are far more expensive than the Harbeths.

Once I had Aerial 10Ts that sounded like new speakers with vocals to die for when I drove them with a Pass X350 to replace an Aragon 8008.

Oh well, thanks for reading my rambling thoughts here...

So I think I would avoid pairing good speakers with lesser amps,
rgs92
has2be's avatar
has2be
555 posts
 
I think they both play an important part and I think the fact that the for sale listings for both amps and for speakers always have the highest number of listings shows it seems to be the ones we make the less favorable choices with.

No matter how good either is sometimes there just is no synergy. Sometimes we sell the speakers and keep the amp or sell the amp and keep the speakers depending on the attachment to one or the other and in doing so forget about the importance of source and pre and the system as a hole.
It does make sense to find a speaker you like the sound of but the same can be said with an amp as well.

Cheers
erikt
256 posts
 
Speakers first in this case, but *everything* matters in the end.

I subscribe to the real observed result of 'synergy' and the inter-relationship of a given system comprised of different components.

Synergy is a b@tch, but once you lick her...she's mighty sweet ;-)
mechans
3,048 posts
 
I found that my JM Lab speakers just never sounded very good until I got the right amps to drive them. From this experience I can only conclude that it is niether one or the other but it must be both at the same time. Not only that but it really is good amps and good speakers that do have some synergy as has been mentioned.
hifihvn
943 posts
 
Speakers first. Those Onkyo integrateds are just a budget low powered digital amp. There are a lot of other amps in their price range that will give better low power watts than that Onkyo, to get by with until you get a good amp for them.
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
room...speakers...amp
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