2 Channel Amp for Ascent i Panels

I'm considering a 2-channel amp to run my Ascent i panels only. Would you mind sharing your recommendations along with the minimum number of watts I should look for in an amp for the panels to really make them sing? Since I don't have a money tree yet in my yard , please provide me with cost effective solutions.

Thank you ML Owners!

Randall

randallp said:

I'm considering a 2-channel amp to run my Ascent i panels only. Would you mind sharing your recommendations along with the minimum number of watts I should look for in an amp for the panels to really make them sing? Since I don't have a money tree yet in my yard , please provide me with cost effective solutions.

Thank you ML Owners!

Randall

Click to expand...

Hola Randall. You have to be careful to choose the amp. The important feature is the sensitivity or to have level adjustments, so this way you can match them with no problem. Remember that quality watts are far better than quantity watts. Trust your ears, and choose the one that you did like most. Happy listening,
Roberto.

The "Search" feature is your friend.

There is no such thing as a "minimum number of watts." Quality vs. quantity is what it is all about. Some prefer 60 wpc tube amps, others prefer 400 wpc solid state amps. Also, "cost effective" is relevant. What is your budget? Are you looking for new or used?

It is impossible to give you any useful recommendations without more information. What preamp and source will you be using? What is the size of your room? What are your music tastes and volume preferences? What will be pushing the woofers? Do you prefer solid state or tubes? What kind of sound are you looking for?

As far as the minimum number of watts. Amp ratings can be very misleading, and ESL panels are a very demanding load. Their impedance varies greatly with frequency and approaches 1 ohm at 20,000 Hz. It is much more important that the amp can continue to supply AMPs to the panels when the impedance drops to 1 ohm. Normally what we look for in specs is an amp that doubles in power as it halves in impedance 200 w at 8 ohm and 400 w at 4 ohm. The 'quality' of watts is more important than the quantity of watts. (Actually it is the stability of the amp at low impedances that is most important).

A cost effective amp would be a used Sunfire Symphonic Reference (200 wpc). or Sunfire Signature amp. the Symphonic Reference should be under $1K on audiogon. I got mine for another forum member for much less.

My personal preference would be the Sanders Sound Systems ESL amplifier (360 wpc) $4k and engineered to handle a ESL load.

I personally have both amplifiers, The Sunfire was my first upgrade from a Pioneer receiver similar to your Denon. and the jump in sound was immediately noticeable. The sound quality took another jump when the Sanders replaced it on the front channels. I upgraded one more time to Sander's Monoblock amplifiers (800wpc) and $4k each. You can hear the difference but it is small and for most not worth the extra money. (law of diminishing returns).

Hope that helps some,
--burke

Used Carvers

I'm using the old Carver M-400t for the center "Theater", and the Carver M 1.5t for the panels on my front Ascent i's. The "t" stands for "tube transfer function" Bob Carver's claim (verified by some reviewers) to give a tube amp response to a solid state amp. They are high current with power doubling as the impedance of the load halves. Sound great in my system, and available relatively cheaply on e-bay. One needs to be careful with them, because the large power supply capacitors are near the end of life for many of these and are a couple of hundred dollars to replace, when you can find a suitable substitute for the no longer available original capacitors.

I power the Ascent panels with a 35wpc EL-34 tube amp.
It has enough power for quite realistic levels. I seem to prefer the tubes to SS on the panels - e.g. a Dynaco ST-70 if you can find it should sound quite fine with them.
Although I'm saving for the MC275 now

Burke said:

As far as the minimum number of watts. Amp ratings can be very misleading, and ESL panels are a very demanding load. Their impedance varies greatly with frequency and approaches 1 ohm at 20,000 Hz. It is much more important that the amp can continue to supply AMPs to the panels when the impedance drops to 1 ohm.

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Every time I read the statement that an amp should be able to deliver the current required into 1 Ohm at 20KHz, I can't help but think that at very high frequencies the little music content present is not very loud, e.g. a triangle, so why do you need prodigious amounts of current ?

Or am I missing something ?

Bernard said:

Every time I read the statement that an amp should be able to deliver the current required into 1 Ohm at 20KHz, I can't help but think that at very high frequencies the little music content present is not very loud, e.g. a triangle, so why do you need prodigious amounts of current ?

Or am I missing something ?

Click to expand...

Every time the impedance haves the current requirement doubles. So as a purely hypothetical example, if at 8 ohms 10 amps is required to produce 70 db, the 20 amps is required at 4 ohms for the same output, 40 amps at 2 ohms and 80 amps at 1 ohm. So even for a small output huge amounts of current are required.

I agree with the Carver M1.5t...had one used in a 2nd system and tried it on my CLS with pleasing results...the real problem replacement component according to Carver service is that that the transformers are in scarce supply.

Bernard said:

Every time I read the statement that an amp should be able to deliver the current required into 1 Ohm at 20KHz, I can't help but think that at very high frequencies the little music content present is not very loud, e.g. a triangle, so why do you need prodigious amounts of current ?

Or am I missing something ?

Click to expand...

Bernard, you are correct that there is not a lot of musical information generally between 10,000 and 20,000 hz. But the information that is there is critical to the accuracy of sound of many instruments, particularly to the decay of a struck note. Even when an instrument's initial attack is under 10,000 hz., the harmonics generated in the decay of that note can go well over 20,000 hz. The harmonics generated by cymbals, in particular, have pretty high volumes even over 20,000 hz.

For more information on this, check out this paper:

There's Life Above 20 Kilohertz! A Survey of Musical Instrument Spectra to 102.4 KHz

According to this paper, each musical instrument family — strings, winds, brass and percussion — has at least one member which produces energy to 40 kHz or above.

Thus, if one seeks an accurate portrayal of many instruments and particularly the decay of notes, it is important that an amp be stable into low impedances when driving an electrostatic panel. Otherwise you will get a rolling off of the high frequencies and a lack of extended decay. Some actually prefer this more mellow sound. But if you seek accuracy, if you want a cymbal to sound like a cymbal and a triangle to sound like a triangle, and even a trumpet, violin and oboe to sound accurate, you need an amplifier that is stable with wildly varying impedance swings.