2. amps-preamps
  3. 1260904595

Can someone give me an explaination re: power amp.

So, I own a simaudio i-5 driving paradigm studio 60 v.3, and I am not happy with the sound at low volume. turn it up everything is great, but low volume has muffled sound. Everyone says the paradigms are efficient, but i go out looking for more efficient speakers, and happen to come home with a loaner power amp- a simaudio w-3 (125 wpc), and the sound at low volume sounds markedly better with the power amp. this is contrary to everything i have convinced myself to believe. i have convinced myself that a good integrated is all i need, but I cannot deny the sound. so instead of asking the age old separates vs. integrated question, i'm just going to ask- why does my system sound so much better at LOW volume with the power amp. Maybe the speakers aren't as efficient as I thought? Maybe the 70 wpc simaudio i-5 isn't as great a machine as i thought? maybe there's a technical explaination? Please enlighten me! and thanks, and merry christmas to all you audiophiles out there! (oh, and the reason I didn't come home with speakers is that i really love the full range of sound from the towers, and i couldn't find any highly efficient speaker that had the range I enjoy. not that it dosen't exist, but i just couldn't find it. I live in portland, oregon).
blazerfan

Showing 2 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,625 posts
 
Neubilder, I'd be one of those! So far the most accurate speakers I have heard are 98 db 1 watt 1 meter. They go from 20Hz to 40KHz and have the same transparency and detail of the best ESLs but dynamic range no ESL or magnetic planar can hope for.

Additionally, amplifier power can be expensive compared to speaker efficiency. If you want realistic volume levels, it can take a prodigious amount of power to cleanly reproduce volumes of +105db without strain and distortion with speakers that are 90 db or less- assuming that the speaker can even play that loud without artifacts of its own. IMO/IME any speaker that requires more than a 200 watt amplifier is just plain impractical.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,625 posts
 
Kijanki, some tube amps will make higher distortion at very low power levels just like transistors. Others (SETs for example) the distortion becomes unmeasurable.

Feedback is appearing more and more to be a poor means of ridding audio circuits of distortion. An amplifier that might not have had much beyond the 5th or 6th harmonic will suddenly have harmonics beyond the 81st when feedback is applied.

Much depends on propagation delay and how effective the circuit was as an amplifier before the feedback was applied.
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