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Apogee Scintilla Power

I know this is an old topic but here in 2019 has anyone come across any “new” ideas for driving Scintilla 1 ohm’s?  Just looking for some options. The obvious ones i know/heard of are old Krell, H2O, Lamm (big money) and some pretty wild european amps? I currently have a pair of Sunfire 300’s (with Scintilla mod) that actually sound pretty good and it is amazing what Bob Carver achieved here but looking for the next step. Thanks for any ideas. No need telling me to sell my Scintilla’s.....:). I am all in and really do like the Apogee stuff. Maybe its nostalgic or the journey. Thanks very much. 
westerlm

Showing 2 responses by georgehifi

georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
westerlm OP
I have recently picked up a Plinius SA250 MkIV that is being refreshed and turned into a Reference. Has proven to operate steady at 1ohm load handling scintilla dips down to .85ohms with high power and current.
This "could" be the one for you, Plinius usually use mosfet in their output which sag not increase into 2ohms
But it "seems" for this SA250 they may have used bi-polar (bjt) in this model, but! not complimentary npn/pnp but just npn for top and bottom rails.
Maybe they meant N channel only top and bottom (not npn) and it is Mosfet, then that would explain this comment when tested into 2ohms " the amplifier is clearly less comfortable with the 2 ohm load" which means not so good with your Apogee’s 0.9ohm loading


Still it can give a good wattage increase for every halving of impedance
320W into 8 ohms
480W into 4 ohms
740W into 2 ohms (single channel driven)

Cheers George
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
westerlm
Apogee Scintilla Power
The Apogee Scintilla are only 79db so you’ll need "at least" 150watt/8ohm to get them going.
But they go down to 0.9ohm right through the lower bass and also 1.2ohm around 1-2khz in the upper midrange.
http://www.lippaudio.org/old/MySystems/Scintilla/impedance.html

So this says, that the amp should come "close" to doubling it’s wattage for each halving of impedance from 8ohms right down to 2ohms. Look at big amps with bi-polar (bjt) output stages. eg Krell KSA250 or similar ect ect ect
Anything else "may sound OK" but will be a compromise, especially tubes, and won’t get the best from them.

EG:
150w/8ohm
300w/4ohm
600w/2ohm

Cheers George
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