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Which Amplifier for Sonus Faber Olympica 3 Speaker

I own a pair of SF Olympica 3 speakers and have narrowed my choices to 2 amplifiers. My tastes lean toward the warmer richer side of the fence. The Hegel 300 or 1 of the LFD amplifiers. On 1 hand the LFD is lower power but quite balanced. The Hegel is approximately the same price but has 250 wats of power plus a built-in DAC. My speakers rquire some power at 90DB efficient but its a 4 ohm load. I have heard the Hegel but with Magico speakers. It sounded good with nice detail and never tipped over the edge. The LFD is playing on my speakers now but drawing comparisons is difficult given different speakers. Any thoughts re these 2 amplifiers is most welcome.
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Showing 2 responses by dtc

dtc's avatar
dtc
1,047 posts
 
George - the older SF were, as you say, notoriously hard to drive due to impedence and phase angle issues. However, the newer designs are typically much less taxing. The Futura graphs look more like the old designs, which may simply mean that they kept some of the old design. Stereophile did review the Venere 2.5 and found it much easier to drive than older, higher end models. That is not surprising since it is meant to be a more entry level offering. I believe part of the design criteria for the Cremona M was to make it easier to drive than the original Cremona. I believe they probably carried over that philosophy to the Olympica design. Since Stereophile has not measured the Olympica 3 it is hard to know how easy or hard it is to drive. But my guess is that it will much easier to drive than the Cremona or Amati Futura that you reference.

Venere 2.5 Measurements
dtc's avatar
dtc
1,047 posts
 
George - the review is useful. Thanks. What has typically made SF hard to drive is not just the impedance but also the phase angle. The Miller report does comment that the phase angle is well controlled, so the speaker may not be as hard to drive as the impedance along would indicate. This would be consistent with the fact that the Cremona M is much easier to drive than the Cremona. And the Olympica is the follow on to the Cremona M.

I agree that I would be careful with a lower power amp, but the Miller comments seem to indicate that a monster amp may not be needed to drive the speakers.

Unfortunately, I do not know enough about the amps the OP is considering. The Hegel 300 is 250 watts at 8 ohm and 430 at 4 ohm. Does not double down but it may well have high enough current to drive the Olympica. I would not dismiss it, especially given the Miller comments.
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