We should reject hard-to-drive speakers more often

Since I got the Hegel H390, I haven’t found a speaker it can’t drive, but I really can’t speak for the thousands of speakers I haven’t tried yet.

@ghdprentice 

My Acoustat Model X’s come with forty watt mono blocks that have more than enough oomph to power them full bandwidth and with a crossover set at 100 hz, and a sub or two, it’s crazy good! 

@erik_squires 

Your reference to hard to drive Infinity Speakers brings back memories of my first "high end" purchase. In the early 70's I was at a hi-fi store in Palo Alto. They had the Infinity 2000A Electrostatic speakers (4 Ohm) on display playing a Cat Stevens album. To my young and naive ears they sounded spectacular. I don't know what amplifier they were using, but it was probably top quality, better than my Sherwood receiver at 60 watts a channel. I scraped up the money and bought the Infinity's. They sounded great even though my Sherwood was probably struggling to drive them. About a year later I traded them in, the speaker's power cords were quite inconvenient in my small apartment.

@ericsch: Small world! In 1071 I heard the 2000A at the same shop in Palo Alto: Sound Systems was it's name. They were running all their speakers (including the Infinity Servo-Static I's) with SAE electronics.The 2000A used a number of the wonderful RTR ESL tweeters, and were far more transparent that the AR 3a and Rectilinear III's I had been considering. I didn't have the $$$ for the 2000A, so got the 1001 instead. A year later I heard the Magneplanar Tympani T-I (also at Sound Systems) powered by ARC electronics, and it was a new world ;-) .

@bdp24 Yes, it was Sound Systems, a really nice shop. From reading your posts, we were living in the bay area about the same time. Winterland, Fillmore, Avalon Ballroom, etc.

I traded the Infinity's in for SAE speakers, also not very efficient. Then moved on to a Mac C-26 and a Crown amplifier, couldn't afford the matching Mac 2105.