Here's why amps can be more important than speaker


I was looking at B&W's site:
You will notice that speaker total harmonic distortion figures tend to be worse than those of amplifiers and it is reasonable to ask why amplifier designers bother to get down to levels of say 0.01% or lower if the speaker is so much worse. The reason is that most of a speaker's distortion is restricted to the lower-order harmonics, whereas amplifiers can readily generate higher-order harmonics that are much more objectionable.

B&W FAQ
cdc

Showing 1 response by gs5556

Why is it reasonable? Because distortion is cumulative. There's distortion in the recording mike, cables, recording preamp, disc/vinyl mastering, your sources, amps, cables and speakers. It's like asking "why clean your eyeglasses if your windows are dirty?".

Speaker distortion a fact of physics life. I second the notion - buy with your ears (and within your credit limit, of course), and not with the back of the brochure.