Would you change your amp selection knowing...?


OK - so this thread was promted by some comments on another thread - not wanting to hijack that thread I created this one...

ISSUE: some high current designed amps have an issue with speaker cables that have a high capacitance.
- the amp can be driven to self destruction because of internal oscilation caused by the high capacitance of the speaker cable
- this does NOT apply to Tube amps - i.e. to my knowledge

The amps I know of that are affected in this way are Ayre, Gryphon and NAIM
- only NAIM warns of this up front AND instruct their dealers to let customers know about it

So why don’t other brands warn about the possibility?

QUESTION:
- would it put you off?
- would you select a different amp if the manufacturer warned of this "issue" up front?

Cheers



williewonka

Showing 3 responses by jhills

I tend to agree with anhwy61, shadome, almarg and others that feel there is no reason for high capacitance in a cable. To Al's statement "A cable having extreme and/or unusual parameters would be a non-starter for me" - I say "DITTO". The amps mentioned in the OP are neither cheep nor poorly designed. Over the years, I've come to the conclusion that the three main attributes of good cables is: high conductivity, low capacitance and low inductance. Beyond that, IMO, there are a lot of very expensive gimmicks out there that do nothing more than alter or degrade the the original signal. Signal loss and degradation is also the reason that high capacitance cables do not work for high speed data processing....Jim
@cheeg While I’m not an expert by any means, I have been an audio enthusiast for more than 35 years and have had the opportunity of owning or extensively auditioning some very nice equipment - speakers, amps, cables and accessories - some combinations working very well together and some not. Regarding cables, IMO that there is little to no reason to use high capacitance cables for any system, regardless of speakers and whether powering with a ss amp (particularly a high currant ss amp) or tubes. I have one set of low capacitance, highly conductive (individual strands of polyethylene insulated Oxy free pure copper)) cables, that I now use always, regardless of what I trade in and out of my system, knowing that they will allow me to hear subtle differences in everything else without adding a character or coloration of their own. I have no worries of them raising havoc with any of my high currant amps and they work equally well with tubes. My RCA interconnect cables are short run, low C pure silver and I have no desire to change them either.....just some thoughts...Jim