amp choice for summits

I've recently purchased a pair of summits. I then upgraded my amp to a McIntosh 7270. It seems to be a great pairing. The summits sound great. The one thing I wonder about is: could I benefit from more power? more than the 270 watts per side from the 7270?
I ask because I often listen at loud volumes and the amp seems to be working hard and often "redlines". Still, the sound quality does not seem to degrade. I'm just wondering what it would be like if I used two 7270s, each in mono at 540 watts per side, for example. That seems like an awful lot of power, but it seems like I wouldn't have to have my amp(s) turned up all the way if I had more power.
Any thoughts or advice?

Also, I have the option of running the amp in 2, 4, or 8 ohms.
the shop I purchased the amp from suggested I use the 8 ohm connection. The manual for the summits, however, list them at 4 ohms. Is this a critical factor?
thanks.

Sounds to me like someone ftom the store needs a lesson in the Summit specs! Yes, I'd run them from the 4-Ohm tap.

How big is your room, and what other gear are you using? you must be playing them really loud! :rocker:

I ran my Summits on an Sanders ESL 2ch amp (325 wpc) and latter upgraded to the Sanders ESL Monoblocks there was a difference but not enough of one to justify the extra cost.

Change to the 4 ohm tap I am sure you will be fine.

Also :welcome: to our little corner of insanity.

Good to see another Chicago face in the crowd, be sure to keep an eye out on Regional Get togethers as the Chicago crowd like to get together several times a year. If you want to meet any of us just send us a pm.

Connect the summits to the 4 ohm tap. 270 WPC should be more then enough. Remember, with the summits it is more like 670 WPC (400 WPC internal amp + 270 Mcintosh amp). The Mcintosh is only powering the panels.

maybe I am totally of base here and someone can set me straight but why do you need quite so much power for just the panels? have you ever seen the wires that they hook up with they are thin looking things I just do not quite understand I have 200 watts on mine but some say more more more krell pass mac I know its more than just power its quility too but the theme seems to be that they need much more than I power them with. that the panels are totally power hungary and drive most amps straight into a/b mode and the cliping.I am not saying this is not the case but maybe someone smarter than I when it comes to this could

If you look at the panel as a capacitor and then use this equation Xc = 1/2 3.14fC (Xc is in ohms and C is the capacitance of the panel). You will note that as frequency (f) goes up the resistance (Xc) goes down. So the panels become almost become a short circuit at high frequencies. Short circuits need a lot of current to make them happy. So the more power you have on tap the better your MLs will sound.

really. well if so much power is being used why can they get away with so thin of wires ???
I talked to pass about this once and not to quote them wrong but they said that you are correct about them becoming almost a short at high freq but that the highs use a lot less power than the low's so this is not really that big of a deal.

quaykat,

I would certainly go off the 4 ohm tap and see how it sounds to you. I've had my Spires on the 2,4 and 8 tap. The 4 was where I settled at. I've had my 501's to about 100 watts and it believe me they get plenty loud and I've never gone into PowerGuard (Macs version of "soft" clipping).

If I recall, Tonepub recommended at least the power of a MC352. I might be mistaken on that tidbit, if I am I'm sure he'll chime in.

Gordon

The power is not used continues. The panel may only dip down to 1 ohm for a few micro seconds. The amp just needs to deliver the power when asked. This is why some amps are rated at 8, 4, 2, and sometimes even 1 ohm.

Summits and power

I use a McIntosh MC-402 amp with my Summits, and the meter rarely ever goes above the 40 watt mark. I can't imagine that you need anything like this much power (400 watts) to drive the Summits. In fact, every speaker that I used the Mac with previously drew considerably more power than the Summits. Not having to drive the four woofers makes a huge difference.

Like others above, I use the 4 ohm tap.

Cherian said:

Short circuits need a lot of current to make them happy. So the more power you have on tap the better your MLs will sound.

Click to expand...

Not really... short circuit + mucho power just means a lot of heat.

You need an amp that can deliver its maximum current at near short circuit to keep the amp happy, not the speaker. Less capable amps become unstable and can do wierd things like distorting, potentially feeding destructive spikes to the speaker, or shutting down.

There are many other criteria to keep in mind while selecting and amp. I myself use a really big amp, a 600 watter (@4 ohms), because it will deliver 125 wpc in pure class A before shifting over to "more distorted" class AB. So, for all intents and purposes I'm running class A all the time.

CCH said:

Like others above, I use the 4 ohm tap.

Click to expand...

Have you ever tried the 8 ohm tap? The salesperson that sold me my Summits has a pair himself with the same amp you have, the 402 ...he tells me that the Summit sounds better when connected to the 8 ohm tap, which while illogical, is possible. A speaker isn't linearly one impedance or another. It's impedance varies all over the map depending on frequency. A manufacturer specifies the impedance of a speaker based on criteria that they establish. It may be that the 8 ohm tap better suits the speaker in your typical listening environment.

I have tried...

...the 8 ohm tap. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't hear any difference.

Cherian said:

The power is not used continues. The panel may only dip down to 1 ohm for a few micro seconds. The amp just needs to deliver the power when asked. This is why some amps are rated at 8, 4, 2, and sometimes even 1 ohm.

Click to expand...

If the amp needs to be stable and deliver good power to the low impedance load when asked, the 50-watter Krell KSA50s or the 30-watter Pass Aleph 3 will deliver just fine. These 2 amps have been measured at 2-ohms by S'phile with flying colors. Also notice that the Pass Aleph 3 DOES NOT double down at all. It just delivers constant power into ANY load! A friend of mine started out with the Krell KSA50s on the CLS IIz and later moved to the Aleph 3 to get more extract more "soul" or "tone" from his system. Compared to many other amps, including ARC, CJ tubes and other solid-states power-houses, these low-powered solid-state amps hold their own and they sound better than most! That may be why they are still very highly regarded in the audio community now.
The point is that the amp need to be stable to low-impedance load. The high wattage rating is NOT required here! To answer the original question directly, "could you benefit from more power?" Not necessarily. "Could you benefit from a well designed amp stable into low impedance load?" DEFINITELY!

Spike

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