Integrates That Go Well With Totem Forest

The Bada DC225 is excellent. 75WPC, tube hybrid. $1200 at Pacific Valve with 30 day money back. If you really want to blast, Bada makes a more powerful amp at about $1800, but I haven't heard it. Also available at Pacific Valve.

Bob Reynolds I think you meant a very low impedance, thats what tube amps typically have trouble with. Intuitively one would think a high impedance would be hard to overcome but tube amps have a high output impedance. Unless its one of those phase angle issues that I don't understand.

Doesn't the impedance curve of the Forest make it unsuitable for tube amps. There's a fairly wide high peak centered around 2K.

In comparison with the frequency response that would result if the speaker were driven by a solid state amp having negligibly small output impedance, with most tube amps there will be an increased emphasis of frequencies in the region of that peak. But given that the speaker's impedance, as shown here, does not go much below 8 ohms at any frequency, the difference will not be major with tube amps having output impedances that are typical of those in the power range likely to be considered for use with these speakers. I'd be much more concerned if the speaker had an impedance variation, as a function of frequency, between say 4 ohms and that peak.

For example, with a tube amp having an output impedance of 2 ohms, corresponding to a damping factor of 4, the frequency response rise in the area of that impedance peak, due to the interaction of amplifier output impedance and the variation of speaker impedance as a function of frequency, would be less than 2 db.

On the other hand, it seems possible that the distortion performance of some tube amps will be less than ideal working into that kind of impedance peak, because of the difference between that peak impedance and the impedance the output tap of the amplifier is designed to work into. It also seems possible that the distortion performance of a marginally powered solid state amp will degrade somewhat at frequencies in the area of that peak, because of its reduced ability to deliver power into such a high impedance.

So there is some guesswork involved. Personally, though, given the cost constraint and the preference for an integrated amp, my instinct would be to go solid state. Some good recommendations appear to have been offered above.

Regards,
-- Al

Hi guys
Thanks for all the responses. Sorry for my late reply but I have been out most of the day and just got back. You would not think that the Totems Forest would pose a demanding load on an amp with them being 87db and 8ohms.But they sure like a lot of power, with so much out there it's very confusing. I have been thinking of a wired 4 sound STI- 500 what do you guys think on paper it looks very impressive with 250 watts x 2 and doubling at 4ohm. I'm also thinking something from Simaudio like an I 3.3 or a Musical Fidelity A5. any opinions on my 3 picks.