Digging through the Mac specs it appears that their own direct coupled design has 5 times the damping factor of the autoformer design. While it seems debatable if damping factor beyond 250 has real-world gain, these values seem to be within the “it might matter” range since they’re within the 0-250 range.@eisenb11 It might interest you to know that no speaker made needs more than 20:1 damping factor and many sound better with less! So more damping factor, if that is the only metric, totally does not matter. Damping factor looks better on paper than it sounds in real life- again, given that such is the only metric. Distortion is far more important, both the distortion that an amp makes and also that which it does not. In general with most amps these days higher distortion is often a sign of lower ordered harmonics to which the ear is relatively insensitive. OTHO very low distortion might only be higher ordered harmonics and the ear is keenly sensitive to those and interprets them as brightness and harshness.
100W, 200W, or 300W?
I'm pretty new to this and could use some help. Working down my list of upgrades: did speakers, room treatment on order... I think next up is to replace my amp.
I'm currently using a Harman Kardon PA2000 stereo amp that I had sitting in storage. 100 WPC @ 8 Ohm. It's "OK", but it probably the weak point in my system right now.
For speakers, I picked up B&W 805D3 tabletops with stands.
88 dbSPL sensitivity, 8 ohm. They recommend 50-120W @ Ohm for the amp power on their site.
I pulled up an amplifier calculator and plugged in some numbers:
88 sBSPL, 8 ft distance, 85 dB volume w 15 dB headroom and this came out to 3W RMS w 94W peak
I have my heart set on blue watt meters so I see the following options:
1) MA5300 @ 100 WPC, no autoformers, integrated
2) MA7200 @ 200 WPC, has autoformers, integrated
3) MC302 @ 300 WPC, has autorormers, seperates
For the MA5300, I'm concerned that there isn't enough headroom. If I even get close to the 94W peak, it means that I'm pushing the amp to the max, so I'd probably be operating in an area of reduced sonic performance since it's being stressed. Is this a correct assumption?
The MA7200 looks like it'll leave plenty of headroom and it also has (for better or worse) autoformers which seems to be what puts the "mac sound" in macs.
The MC302 is just sexy as heck... but is there any realistic gain with my current set up that I would get by buying one of these? Or is it so much overkill that I am just throwing money away at this point?
I'm currently using a Harman Kardon PA2000 stereo amp that I had sitting in storage. 100 WPC @ 8 Ohm. It's "OK", but it probably the weak point in my system right now.
For speakers, I picked up B&W 805D3 tabletops with stands.
88 dbSPL sensitivity, 8 ohm. They recommend 50-120W @ Ohm for the amp power on their site.
I pulled up an amplifier calculator and plugged in some numbers:
88 sBSPL, 8 ft distance, 85 dB volume w 15 dB headroom and this came out to 3W RMS w 94W peak
I have my heart set on blue watt meters so I see the following options:
1) MA5300 @ 100 WPC, no autoformers, integrated
2) MA7200 @ 200 WPC, has autoformers, integrated
3) MC302 @ 300 WPC, has autorormers, seperates
For the MA5300, I'm concerned that there isn't enough headroom. If I even get close to the 94W peak, it means that I'm pushing the amp to the max, so I'd probably be operating in an area of reduced sonic performance since it's being stressed. Is this a correct assumption?
The MA7200 looks like it'll leave plenty of headroom and it also has (for better or worse) autoformers which seems to be what puts the "mac sound" in macs.
The MC302 is just sexy as heck... but is there any realistic gain with my current set up that I would get by buying one of these? Or is it so much overkill that I am just throwing money away at this point?
- ...
- 69 posts total
- 69 posts total