Can Pass XA60.8's drive Revel Ultima Salon2's without their tongues hanging out?
I need to pay .....well, tribute to the Tributes because they (and the current system) are open, articulate and musical. And the three 6" woofers produce a surprisingly deep, fast and punchy bass. The Beryllium tweeter sparkles just right too. I think the first order of business is gonna be to get this system in a new home and better acoustic surrounding and evaluate from there before I start throwing $ at it.........unless I see an offer I can't refuse! ; ) |
As a point of information, I suspect that the "122 watts peak" specification of the point at which the amp leaves class A corresponds to 61 watts based on the usual convention for defining amplifier power (volts x current with each defined on an RMS (root mean square) basis, rather than a peak basis). Also, according to Stereophile's measurements the Salon 2 has an impedance of around 4 ohms throughout most of the bass and mid-bass regions, where most music contains a lot of its energy, and has a sensitivity of 86 db/2.83 volts/1 meter. 2.83 volts into 4 ohms corresponds to 2 watts, so that sensitivity corresponds to 83 db/1 watt/1 meter. The amp is rated at 120 watts into 4 ohms. It can be calculated that 120 watts into a pair of 83 db/1 watt/1 meter non-planar speakers which can handle that amount of power without significant thermal compression (as appears to be the case here) will result in an SPL at a 10 foot listening distance of about 100 db. That will of course be loud enough for most recordings for most listeners. However, if your listening includes recordings having particularly wide dynamic range, such as some classical orchestral recordings that have been engineered with minimal or no dynamic compression, you might fall a few db short on the brief dynamic peaks of some recordings. Good luck. Regards, -- Al |
I always thought you need real high powered amplifiers to get a decent sound from inefficient speakers in a large room. We just did an experiment this past weekend which proved (to me) that it really boils down to how loud you listen to your music. I have a pair of McIntosh MC2200 amps - 200 wpc @ 8 or 4 ohms, bridged to 400 wpc, driving a pair of Martin Logan Aerius i speakers. Listening room is a large 20'x20'x20', basically a huge cube. A friend of mine brought over his home made 8 wpc tube integrated amp to show off and we decided to hook it up just for kicks and see what happens. Contrary to our expectations, it wasn't that bad at all. The obvious limitation was the sound volume which was reasonably loud but nowhere near what my amps could do. The overall sound also had less "body" but it was quite listenable otherwise. Anyway, I don't know how all this translates to your specific situation but I would not be surprised at all if the XA60.8 drove the Salons without a sweat unless you listen to rock music at concert level volumes. |
The XA-60.8's should be able to drive the
Revel Ultima Salon 2's
. Of course some of that may depend on how large the room is and how loud your average listening levels are. In a really big room at loud levels the XA-60.8 may run out of gas. I guess the decision then would be whether you like the 60.8's or the Salon 2's better. |