SS to Woofers, Tube amp to Stator Panels

Does anyone on this forum run there systems with solid state amp to the woofers and a tube amp to the Stator panels? Could you do it like this - run the ss as I am now off the XLR and run the tube amp off the rca line out?
I think I read somewhere you have to match the gain of both amps, is that a big issue ? Just curious to see what the forum members think. My ss amp is a Simaudio W-5.One more question, what wattage of amp would be required for Odyssey panels?
Cheers, Greg

I'm a tube amp fan but my speakers are not biamplifiable. The SS/Tube thing is a pretty common way to biamp. Yeah, the gain has to be matched or the higher gain section, the bass in your case will be 6dB higher due to the balanced connection, will be 6 dB too loud.

MOON said:

Does anyone on this forum run there systems with solid state amp to the woofers and a tube amp to the Stator panels?

Click to expand...

Yes, my system is bi-amped in the configuration you've described. Follow the link below to my system...

Could you do it like this - run the ss as I am now off the XLR and run the tube amp off the rca line out?

Click to expand...

There's nothing preventing you from mixing the XLR & RCA connections. You should be OK there. Out of curiosity, shouldn't it be the other way around so you can get a bit more gain (6db through the XLR) for the tube amp?

I think I read somewhere you have to match the gain of both amps, is that a big issue ? Just curious to see what the forum members think. My ss amp is a Simaudio W-5.One more question, what wattage of amp would be required for Odyssey panels?

Click to expand...

Yes, matching gain is a must! But it need not be exact science. If you get close to +/- 1db, that is OK.

Hi Spike,
Nice system you have there!! Is that how you have it , running your tube amps off of the XLR? Sounds like it is definately worth it by your description of the improved sound.What wattage rating do you think would be required of a tube amp to drive the panels??
Thanks for the imfo,
Greg

Hey MOON,
My system is hooked up via single-ended RCA coming out from my ModWright linestage. No XLR there. I have 50 watts per channel for my tube amps. The thing to look for is a robustly designed amp which can handle a wide impedance swing. Don't just focus on the low impedance figure of 1 ohm around the 20 Khz area, but instead, look at the wild swing from ~30 ohms down to 1 ohm on the stator. My 50-watt SixPacs are capable of pushing the stators all day long. I've also seen a few tube amps falling apart, rendering the stators lifeless and dry. Depending on your room and how loud you listen to, you will be able to converge on the wattage for the panels. In my case, the sweet spot is around 50 watts, providing a nice balance between maintaining the part count low, preserving the signal quality and the power to drive the panels.

Spike

Don't forget that you could also have a phase reversal between two different amps which could result in a suck out at the crossover frequency.

And that different amps have different levels of gain. So even if you have a 6db difference from driving from balanced versus unbalanced, you are likely to wind up with something a bit different than that in level.

OldMonolith