Current amp vs Voltage amp

Al, my take on this, is that on speakers with varying impedances(all?), such ss amps are more likely to provide more linear output from those speakers. Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

Hi Unsound,

I suspect it to be true that more often than not speakers having widely varying impedances will provide flatter frequency responses when driven by solid state amps. But if so, that would simply be because more often than not speakers are designed and voiced with the expectation they they are most likely to be used with solid state amplifiers.

But there are certainly a great many speakers having widely varying impedances that will do better with tube amps than with solid state amps. Many electrostatics are notable examples, along with a goodly number of dynamic (box-type) speakers.

The effects of amplifier/speaker impedance interactions are, of course, just one of a great many factors affecting the frequency response and tonal balance of a speaker. Which kind of amplifier stands the best chance of being optimal after all those factors net out depends, as Atmasphere has said in similar threads in the past, mainly on the intentions of the designer.

Best regards,
-- Al

Al thanks or the informative posts

Loudspeaker's interface likewise: variabilities-

http://www.inner-magazines.com/news/345/57/Current-please-no-voltage/

Al, the wouldn't sensitivity of the speaker vary along with the impedance?

I copied below John Atkinson's bench tests of the Revel Ultima Salon 2, a speaker that most would agree is a very high end performer. While the impedance and phase angle plots are more "user friendly" than my Paradigm S8s, it is important to note that even the mighty Revel's impedance plots have peaks and valleys. The low being a little less than 4 ohms in the bass region, with a high of 14 ohms in the mid/treble FR range.

So . . . based on the comments above, I would expect that if the Revels were driven by a "pure" Power Paradigm amp with a relatively high output impedance, the acoustic presentation could very well be colored to some extent in the mid/treble FR range. But as Al said, such may not necessarily be the case because many tube amps are configured to have lower output impedances than one might expect, probably because of NF.

In light of the bench test results of the ARC Ref 150 and VS-115, see above, if those amps were used to drive the Revels, I surmise that the acoustic coloration might not be too far off, especially if the 4 ohm taps are used. I don't know if the Ref 150 or VS-115 have enough "oomph" to get the best out of the Revels, but I don't think you would get a headache listening to them.

Btw, I seem to recall that the Revel web site recommends a high current/high output SS amp to get the best results out of the Revels. I understand that the Revels are somewhat inefficient.

I hope our membership reads these OPs because I think there is much to learn. I think this OP and other OPs are asking good questions.

Btw, btw, as I am retraining my ears to get used to listening to my S8s driven off the 4 ohm tap, I don't think the S8s sound all that bad -- maybe even better than before. It's probably all in my head. ;>')

Cheers,

http://www.stereophile.com/content/revel-ultima-salon2-loudspeaker-measurements