Speakers that are good with tubes

there are many many, in actuality, if one goes beyond the super high efficiency speakers made to be powered by flea watt tube amps

but my favorite dynamic speaker make is proac, especially the larger response series and their more recent descendants - stewart tyler (rip) famously voiced his groundbreaking response series models with audio research tube amps

It does not have so be 8 ohms or above.  My speakers are 4 ohm, but they are very, very flat and very well designed.  I bought them to use with an ss amp.  The first time I heard them with a tube amp, I promptly sold the ss amp.

The statement with emphasis added is false. If you want the most out of your tube investment dollar, stay well away from speakers that are 4 Ohms or less, even if they have a flat impedance curve.

To drive a 4 Ohm speaker you need a 4-Ohm tap on the output transformer. When you use that tap, the amp will make slightly less power and may well lose an octave of bass. Distortion will be higher too.

Even if you have solid state amps, if high fidelity is your goal, 4 Ohm speakers are a bad idea, simply because all amplifiers, tube or solid state, make more distortion into lower impedances.

As a special rule of thumb, if you are looking at an '8 Ohm' speaker that employs dual woofers, ask the manufacturer if the woofer array is also 8 Ohms. Its quite common for speaker designers to put two 8 Ohm woofers in parallel, producing a 4 Ohm load in the bass, while the rest of the speaker is 8 Ohms, and then say the speaker is '8 Ohm compatible' or some such nonsense.

If in doubt, avoid speakers with dual woofers unless you get a very good audition in your home.

I would just say that tube amps easier drive speakers than SS ones. I was first surprised how my well my 5 watts SET amp drives my Thiel CS6 speakers, 87db, 4 ohms, no issues at all. 

@jchiappinelli   I drive my Triton 1.r's with a VAC Renaissance 70/70 amp @65 WPC, they sound great too! 

Focal if not mentioned yet. Awesome with Tubes. 

Don’t listen to folks who haven’t tried any given combination. I ran my ATC SCM40 V2’s with a Line Magnetic 805ia and it was bliss—sounded convincingly like ATC’s own P2 which I also owned. There are class a high current tube amps that will drive many of the 6-8 ohm speakers out there easily.
 

The only thing with tubes is that they tend to lead you down the high efficiency speaker path at some point. I drive my Tannoy Turnberry GR’s with a 14 watt Line Magnetic and my Pure Audio Project Duets with a 1.5 watt SET amp. 

@hilde45

You can avoid the output transformer problem altogether by going with an OTL, such as atmasphere, or Futterman.

I use Altec 604Cs - 101db - paired with the NY Audiolab OTL3 version of the Futterman design, converted to triode.

Klipsch KG 4s are a winning hand with tube amps. I sold mine and do miss them now even though I have a set of Klipsch Fortes I and its little brother the Quartets.

If you like the sound of Maggies, but don't want or can't afford a 300 watt tube amp, look into the Eminent Technology LFT-8. Like Maggies, the LFT employs planar-magnetic drivers. Unlike the Maggies, the LFT is a tube-friendly loudspeaker, it's modulus of impedance 8 ohms and above. And if you bi-amp (two pair of binding posts are provided: one for the p-m drivers---180Hz up, another for the woofer), the impedance of the panels is 11 ohms, even better for tube amps. 

Blumenhofer FS1 speakers

Omega speakers loves tubes.Some Tekton speakers as well.

When I had my Focal Diablo Utopia III's, they loved my PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premier HP amp . . . It was a very good match.

Any model by the long defunct Equation brand. Have some Equation 7 and honestly play better than MANY of the Harbeth, Spendor & Rogers speakers I've been used to. If you come across a set, buy'em. 

Electrostatic speakers are wonderful if you like them, I have heard dozens driven with every type of amplification.  Sorry I've not heard one I liked. It's purely personal I know however, as more than one HI fi expert and reviewer has observed, "choose which type of fake you like", nothing in your lounge room sounds like the real thing, good even great, particularly to you but still fake.

I drive my Wilson Maxx 2 with tubes because I prefer the sound to using a very good solid state amp.  Tube amps tend to be lower output power so you need speakers with fairly high sensitivity.

Give the Golden Ear Triton 1r a listen. They are 92 db sensitivity, relatively benign impedance curve, and each contain a 1600w amp to handle the bass which makes driving them with tubes very easy. I drive mine with a pair of 50w Cary monoblocks and couldn't be happier. 

J.Chip

@pinotnoir , greetings. I too have Soundlab speakers and have been waiting patiently for my pair of Atma-Sphere MA 2s for 6 months. We have a very special situation. Our speakers range from 30 ohms in the bass to less than 1 ohm at 20 kHz. The Atma-Spere amps put out the same power regardless of impedance, perfect for the Soundlabs. Most solid state amps are on their knees at 30 ohms. It takes a real SS bruiser to drive this load well, think 300 watts and up. These amps can really not be compared to "normal" tube amplifiers. 

An amplifier is not supposed to have a "sound." In my experience the very best tube amplifiers and the very best SS amplifiers produce very similar performance with the appropriate load. Given that the speaker/room is the weakest link in just about all systems you choose the speaker that matches your room and your wife best then buy an amp that drives that particular load well. Buying speakers to match your amp is folly. 

With high powered tube amps, I don't think there are many restrictions on what speakers can be used with the amp.  The issue with low impedance speakers has to do with the interaction between the amp output impedance and the impedance of the speaker affecting the frequency response.  It is NOT a safety issue because tube amps can safely run into very low impedances (even a dead short).  If a 4 ohm rated speaker remained at 4 ohms across the entire frequency band, there would be no change in the frequency response resulting from the output impedance of the amp.  But that is never the case, and the closer the output impedance of the amp is to the impedance of the speaker, the greater the interaction with respect to frequency response.  Tube amps tend to have a higher output impedance than solid state amps meaning that there is more of a tendency to affect the frequency response.  While it is generally better to avoid such interactions and the attendant frequency response changes, sometimes these changes can actually sound good.  Hence, higher and flatter impedance curve speakers tend to be better for use with most tube amps.

For my personal taste, I generally tend to like low-powered tube amps over high-powered tube amps.  There are many high-powered tube amps that sound lean and brittle (hard) to my ears such that if I really required a lot of power, I would go with solid state (the sin of most solid state amps is that they sound dead and unengaging at low volume levels, but this is better than being hard).  Hence, tube friendly, to me, means a speaker is both reasonably efficient and has a reasonably high impedance.

I have not heard your McIntosh amp and I am not familiar with the sound of EL509 tubes, so I can only offer very general advice.   If you know the output impedance of your amp, that might help you decide whether it matters at all if a speaker is "tube friendly."  It the impedance is under one ohm (equivalent to a damping factor of 8), it can probably work well with just about any speaker on the market.  If it has a damping factor above 8, there is even less restrictions.  Below 8, you may have meaningful frequency response swings with lower impedance speakers, such as those rated at 4 ohms.

I first heard Goldenear Triton 1s with tubes...man they sounded spectacular!

JBL

ALTEC

KLIPSCH 

TANNOY 

TAD

just some names to get the good sound rocking

I love my Spatial Audio M3 Hologram loudspeakers. I power them with either a Carver 275, our 2011 Carver EL84 or my E.A.R. Yoshino V20. They sound great.

ray

Thanks for the replies.  I have Focal Scala Utopia Evos.  They sound really good.  I wished that I had bumped up to the Maestros though.  I just didn’t know if there was a general type of speaker to steer toward.  Magico S5 and M2s sounded good.  So did Harbeth SLH5+HDs.  I didn’t think that the Sonys Faber Serafino or Amati Traditions sounded that great with the C2700/MC3500 Mk2s surprisingly.  

+1 for Klipsch 

Considering they are McIntosh they would probably match best with some highly resolving speakers. I find McIntosh to be very heavy on the bass and midrange and very shy on details… the choice in speakers is really important to get the most out of what the signal chain can provide. 

I must have missed the part where he said the amps were 350 wpc. If I had know that, I would have skipped this thread altogether. 

This is way out of my league. 

@hilde45 Wrote:

@jond I must have missed the part where he said the amps were 350 wpc. If I had know that, I would have skipped this thread altogether. 

Me too

@hilde45 The OP didn't mention it til about the end of page one.

@jond I must have missed the part where he said the amps were 350 wpc. If I had know that, I would have skipped this thread altogether. 

Well considering the OP has a pair of 350 wpc monoblocks I daresay he can pair just about any speaker he likes with them. Obviously some speakers are more tube friendly than others but that's a lot of power to throw at them. @lewl28 If you truly like your Sopra's just enjoy them.

All the “classic” Klispch speakers, some Altec Lancing horn speakers and some of the older JBL horn speakers. I’m not familiar with the newer ones. But like others have said, it’s not all about the watts.

I love these threads and how they twist and turn, altering the "purity" of the OP questions.

It's like asking two different people how a piece of electronic gear works:

A typical guy off the street would reply "Push this on-off button".

An electrical engineer would be frozen in place by the complexity of the question.

My Klipschorns have sounded great with a CJ tube amp & preamp, CJ preamp and modified Hafer SS amp, and now wirh a PL integrated tube amp.

( my only concern with the PL integrated is how at listening levels the volume knob is barely cracked open.)

It depends on the tube amp and room size as to which speakers sound good with tube amps. 

I had a 20 watt Raven Audio tube integrated driving the supposedly tube non-friendly KEF LS50s in a medium large room and the sound was glorious. 

Also a 100 WPC rogue audio amp with great success driving 86db Harbeths.  

Flip side a 3 WPC SET tube amp likes much more sensitive speakers- e.g. 93db Audio Note AN-J or E.  

Consider a high quality single driver speaker like Voxativ, if you’re searching for musical speed and detail — especially with 300B driven SET. Zu audio can be driven nicely with a low power amplifier but offers more bass with its powered woofer.

I bought a tube amp that had 4 ohm taps and speakers that were 6 ohm nom. Speakers had an impedance dip into the 3 ohm range. Ran them for the first year on the 4 ohm taps and they sounded fine. Then for kicks, tried the 8 ohm taps and never went back.T

...Until I bought Tannoys. Much better match for my amp.

@tubeguy76  I am still trying to figure out Ralph's paper on the issue, and other sources - I am happy to stand corrected.

When I bought my EL34 push-pull Class A tube amp from the bloke who made it he specifically asked what ohms my speakers were.  I said rated at 8, with a brief dip to 6 somewhere.

That's fine, it won't stress anything.

Because he also included a 4 ohm tap in tediously hand-winding the transformers.

In the foreseeable future I may consult with him about making a tube pre-amp, and I'll be much more prepared to ask him difficult questions and actually discuss issues.

@richopp  Let me repeat myself. This is not a magnaplaner thread.

@bigkidz 

Out 40wpc mono blocks drove the YG Acoustic Carmel speakers with ease and outperformed the $16K Class D amps no contest.

I do not doubt your outcome. I’m a very firm believer in the sonic attributes of high quality class A amplifiers. Not to everyone’s approval these days given the “Green” mindset prevalent in these times. I suspect that your class A tube amplifier sounds fantastic!

Charles

@carlsbad Those electrostatics are pictured under the definition of "listening fatigue" in the dictionary, I think. Still, a step up from any box.

As for Maggies, do what I did with my customers back in the day. Have your dealer bring a pair out, set them up properly IN YOUR ROOM, which is the most important part of any system, and see if you feel you have the best possible reproduction of what the source provides, which may or may not be very good.

If you don’t like them, buy what YOU LIKE. You asked what speakers were good with tube amps. I answered as honestly as I could. Since no one else seems to have suggested Maggies--OK, I didn’t read EVERY post--I did. I don’t see how this makes this a "Magneplaner thread," but if you feel that way, then I guess it is.

@hilde45 Sorry, I don’t know those speakers as well as I know Maggies. OP should have his dealer bring out one of each until he finds WHAT HE LIKES best.

It is that ONLY WAY to purchase anything, IMO.

Cheers!

@noske Rogue Audio for one. Tube amps aren’t going to double power like you suspect, they are not the same as a solid state amp. Power is going to nominally the same at each tap but the output voltage will change. Of course, it’s best to consult the amp manufacturer for their opinion but I’ve had zero issues driving <8ohm loads on my 8 ohm transformer taps on my tube amp. 

@charles1dad - by the way I love your user name!

So who’s doing this ? People have rightly posted that speaker impedance and phase angle characteristics are factors that require awareness and consideration. This is true as they greatly influence how successfully a tube amplifier will pair with them.

If you rad through the responses, you can see what I am saying.  I do not want to call anyone out so I left my comment as such.

As far as impedance and phase angle, maybe matching a95-99db speaker has benefits but overall unless you are using 100-200wpc tube amp on one of these speakers, a good designed tube amp will do what it takes.  But I am taking class A designed tube amps.  We have a few AB designed tube amps from well know manufacturers in our Listening Room and that is what most people have experience with.  Out 40wpc mono blocks drove the YG Acoustic Carmel speakers with ease and outperformed the $16K Class D amps no contest.

Happy Listening.

@richopp We got it. You're a magnaplaner man, through and through.  But I will mention that I was pursuing an electrostatic speaker system when I fell down the tube rabbit hole.  My second system is still Martin Logan CLS.  It wasn't until I found tubes that I was able to exceed the clarity and definition that the electrostatic speaker gives you.  Not bashing your speakers but pointing out that there are other options.  BTW, this is not a magnaplaner thread.

@carlsbad I have some buddies here in Denver area with that low-watt, high efficiency approach. It’s pretty magical, and I’m tempted, myself. But that’s a much more difficult path for me at the moment, as it would require getting rid of all my amps and speakers and starting over. I’m moving incrementally, and am currently pretty happy with my non-SET amps (Mono 60’s are great with the KT77s, and the Pass XA25 is really nice, too).

@charles1dad Agreed. Sometimes these threads are like rivers which develop tributaries. Perhaps that’s where I floated!

@richopp Would you say Magneplanars are the only choice -- above and beyond GR Research, Spatial, and others of a similar ilk? Curious as to how you arrived at this very exclusive conclusion.

Not sure what amp you have, but if it is a good quality amp and you want to hear the music as it was recorded, Magneplaners are the only choice.

If you don't really care about that, pretty much any quality box will do.

Cheers!

@hilde45 

To be clear, I agree with you on the importance of capable high quality output transformers. Equally important is the amplifier power supply robustness and quality. The OP is a bit vague and general. I believe posters are just trying to abide and explain what parameters determine speaker “friendly to tube amplifiers “.

Charles 

@hide45  Good summary.  Hopefully the OP hasn't bougth or at least married to a tube amp yet.   To me they should be bought as a pair, however, there is a lot of wiggle room in choosing both.  For example, I recommend an SET.  However, my current primary amp is not an SET, it just sounds like one (Decware ZMA).   A lot of people like horns, I've never found them to suit my preference.  I am currently listening to a very well designed pair of 4 way speakers with a high sensitivity, very flat frequency response, and excellent phase performance.  Midrange to die for. 

But in general my suggestion is less than 10 watts in an SET, and the best deisnged high sensitivity speakers you can find.

Jerry

@carlsbad @charles1dad

It does seem like transformers are a bit far away from the OP’s question.

I went there because there was an assumption that a fairly narrow range of speakers are tube-amp friendly.

What I think has been established is that there is

(a) a wider range of speakers friendly to tubes than assumed.
(b) a need to understand what a specific speaker’s performance is regarding impedance
(c) a need to understand the capability of a given tube amps' performance.

My  comment about transformers relates to (c) which bears on (a).
In other words, if the OP had found a speaker with reasonable impedance performance, then the question would become how well can a given amp perform? Part of answering that question would depend on (c).

Of course, the OP may be perfectly happy or stuck with their amp, in which case they could assess the quality of the transformer on it in order to see how variable their speaker choices are.

Hi lewl28,

I’m the happy combo owner Atma-Sphere MA-1/ Soundlab U-545.

From symphonic to female voices, from bass to cymbals, the best I ever had.

Total satisfaction every time I turn it on, as Sinatra said: “You do something to me, Vudu”

Very important, Diffusion! It helps to deliver the best inside electronics.

Yes, transformers are key to tube amp performance but now you are getting into tube amp selection.  The original question was about speaker selection

Correct.

Charles

@hilde45 Yes, transformers are key to tube amp performance but now you are getting into tube amp selection.  The original question was about speaker selection.  BTW, the transformers for my new custom tube amp are hand wound in Bulgaria.  Most expensive component in the mix.