How Important is Dynamic Headroom?

Very significant, think of it in this senario: you are entering a freeway where you need to get up to 70 miles an hour as quickly as possible so that you can merge into traffic without having someone ram you in the rear, or you have to accelerate and swerve to avoid an accident.

It's the same thing, the acceleration ramp and freeway speed is a swell in the music during a song. Can the amp handle it quickly and without straining or being driven into distortion?

Chuck

no worries.

Interesting...I have been an audiophile for a long time, and so I understand your analogies. The amp has four of the biggest capacitors I have ever seen ("beer can" types or perhaps a tad larger). Anyway, I cannot fathom this being the type of amp that would run out of steam during transients. We will soon see. I am waiting for my new preamp to arrive.

Thanks.

Your B&K 200.2 is a pretty potent(and musical)amp. While specs may be a deciding factor when all other things are equal, they don't tell you how musical an amp is. Only your ears can do that. Just sit back and enjoy that movie or music tonight.

One comparision may be the term "bloom" you read so much about in the press nowdays.
I think it is something to consider when shopping for amplifiers.
IMHO, headroom is very important in good sounding audio equipment.

Depends on your speakers.
True "Class A" amps like my Pass Aleph 2s have no headroom, by definition.
That is Class A.
These amps are 160 watts Class A, into 4 ohms, and I've never clipped any speaker I used them with.

See this thread. The bottom line: Dynamic headroom is a spec that is inconsistently defined and misleading. I would therefore suggest ignoring it.

Also, re your mention of damping factor, extremely high damping factors are meaningless, because the damping factor as seen from the woofer's perspective will be limited by the resistance of the speaker cables and the crossover inductor. And most or all speakers don't need extremely high damping factors anyway. See this thread.

Best regards,
-- Al

I thank all for the responses. My preamp is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. I cannot listen to the big B&K until the preamp is delivered (I have no other preamp). I put quite a bit of thought into the changes I have made in my system, and I am thinking it should be my best yet...

Unison Research Unico CDP-->Canary Audio CA-200-->B&K Reference 200.2-->Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1

I also have a pair of Opera Mezza loudspeakers. Comparing them to the Sierra-1s should be interesting. I have two sets of interconnects: Enigma Audio Apex and the Anti-ICs (by Paul Speltz). My speaker cable is also by Enigma Audio.

I am also considering trying tubes in front of the B&K. The preamp I have picked out for this purpose is the Quicksilver Line Stage (non-remote version). My only concern is the issue of having too much gain. In fact, I will post another thread on this matter.