Amp and speaker matching.


I wanted to know if anyone out there has driven a harder load speaker (86db to be exact), with a Tube Amp around 70 watts? I was thinking of driving a pair of Dynaudio Contour 3.0's with a pair of Prima Luna 7 monoblocks 70watts. Currently I use a Solid State amp 350Watts. The Dyns love power so im afraid to drop down in power.

mattmiller

Showing 2 responses by atmasphere

86 db means that you will generate a SPL of 86 db at 1 meter with 1 watt of power.

It is easy to get confused about this! In this case the spec is Sensitivity, not Efficiency. Sensitivity is 2.83 Volts at one meter, meaning that with a 4 ohm load the power is 2 watts. So the *efficiency* of this speaker is more like 83 db (since 2 watts is 3 db more than 1 watt) while the Sensitivity is 86.

There is also the issue of whether tubes will sound OK on the Dynaudios regardless of the power; IMO they will sound OK but the speaker will be the sort of load that has a tube amp at a disadvantage. For more about this see

http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php

If you really want to get the most out of your tube investment dollar, I would get a different set of speakers! OTOH if you want to optimize these particular speakers you are probably looking for a transistor amplifier or a very large tube amp (+200 watts).
That is understandable. Dynaudio loudspeakers are designed for transistors. Its hard to make them sound right with tubes.