Amp recomendations for EM's

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Yup. I do understand regarding the oscilloscope waveform of clipping. Besides, as you do know, the clipping could be at the positive of the wave or at the negative of it... or both at the same time. The clipping point is where a DC voltage starts to show, because the amp can not handle more power. When the amp is at a clipping stage, the sound is horrible, but many people does not realize that they are over driving the amp, making (a cone speaker) to heat the voice coil at a melting point. This issue (specially when an equalizer is use as a tone control) gave a lot of work. I did repaired a lot of cone speakers due to the clipping power abuse. Old Martin Logan speakers need a lot of quality stable power to drive them. Because they are not easy to drive, due to their impedance curve behaviour and hard sensitivity, many manufactures like Conrad Johnson, Krell, Mark Levinson, Audio Research Company, Jeff Rowland, Bryston, Classe, Aragon, etc, to name a few, used the speakers that you own as a "tool design". The CLS were at their test bench for design. On now days, the efficiency of the ML speakers had changed dramatically. This feature allows you to use a wider range and brands of amplifiers to drive them nicely. You can train your ears, and beyond. How can you measure the feeling of a musician? How can you measure love or hate? And music as a way to express this. But please do not misunderstand me. I do know what you are trying to tell us since the beginning. It is the importance to have a stable amp, than the one that does not, to drive a reactive load. What I believe, it that the amplifiers, due to their design, sound different, without clipping. Some show better the musician feeling than others. Believe me when I say that I do understand your point! Happy listening.

Hi, Roberto. My desire isn't to get into the subjectivity of why, or even if, we hear what we claim we hear but, rather, to impart the importance of objectively measuring, what is a known component of differing amp sonic characteristics, to those who are wondering.

Again, for anyone who is into ESL's (and ther known penchant as amp killers) I can't stress enough the value in knowing your amp's clipping performance.
 
Can you tell a difference in sound between the tube and SS amp? Is the tube sound warmer?

Don't think you have to buy a tube with ML because someone said it was warmer. Do you know what warmer even means or have you just read about it?. I'd audition them to see what you prefer

Some people, maybe purists I don't know, prefer music to be reproduced as accurately as possible without changing the source signal like Tubes can with rolling off highs

I also read that someone did a blind test using a resistor on a SS amp to roll off the highs and nobody could tell a difference between it and a tube amp. But I can't validate that claim so just something to think about if you were interested

I think it's funny whenever I hear "quality watt" versus a non quality watt when a watt is really just a watt when scientifically measured
 
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Hola...yes, it is funny. You can have one watt with a 10% harmonic distortion (not quality watt) and another with less than .1%. Besides, the SS harmonic distortion is different if you make a comparison with a tube amp. The tube distortion is at even harmonics, and our ears almost can not detect this, because these harmonics are the ones that makes a trumpet, a trumpet and a piano, a piano, even if they are playing an A note of 440Hz. But you know all these... happy listening!
 
Hola...yes, it is funny. You can have one watt with a 10% harmonic distortion (not quality watt) and another with less than .1%. Besides, the SS harmonic distortion is different if you make a comparison with a tube amp. The tube distortion is at even harmonics, and our ears almost can not detect this, because these harmonics are the ones that makes a trumpet, a trumpet and a piano, a piano, even if they are playing an A note of 440Hz. But you know all these... happy listening!

Distorted watts confuse me even more. That's ok I'm still learning
 
I am not a fan of any clipping distortion ..... hard, soft, low, high. Not wanted by me.

BTW, tubes can also clip harshly ..... especially when they age and their electron emissions diminish.
 
I am not a fan of any clipping distortion ..... hard, soft, low, high. Not wanted by me.

BTW, tubes can also clip harshly ..... especially when they age and their electron emissions diminish.

Yes, you are super correct. I can not handle the distortion, my ears are very sensitive to it too. We are in the same boat! When I was young, I worked at Channel 7 broadcast tv here. I was an engineer assistant. I did service the signal repeaters all over the country. At that time, all the equipment was tubed. So, I had to check every tube once a month from each repeater signal. So we had channel 5, channel 11, and 12. I had to use the scope to measure the 4MHz bandwidth for the video and audio carriers. I worked 5 years, and I do not recall to had to changed a tube in any repeaters, and they worked 18 hours a day! I quit the job, because I made a big mistake, sticking my hand into a high voltage section of the transmitter, because the Manager of the broadcast was complaint about the time we had to take off the transmission. I almost lost my thumb with a severe burn due to the magnetic field and attracted my hand to the Xformer. I of course I got a good shock! , but my craziness is still on! (LOL). But, I had found really bad tubes in pre-amps and power amps. Low signal tubes in phone pre-amplifiers. Specially double triodes like 12AT7, 6922, 12AUX7, and power tubes like EL-34/6CA7, 6L6, KT-88, 6550A-C etc. You shold test at least every 6 months all your tubes, if you, of course, are a tube user. And you are right! Clipping is hideous! I still have my CLS, I got them in 1987. I am a CLS lover! Happy listening.
 
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Yes, you are super correct. I can not handle the distortion, my ears are very sensitive to it too. We are in the same boat! When I was young, I worked at Channel 7 broadcast tv here. I was an engineer assistant. I did service the signal repeaters all over the country. At that time, all the equipment was tubed. So, I had to check every tube once a month from each repeater signal. So we had channel 5, channel 11, and 12. I had to use the scope to measure the 4MHz bandwidth for the video and audio carriers. I worked 5 years, and I do not recall to had to changed a tube in any repeaters, and they worked 18 hours a day! I quit the job, because I made a big mistake, sticking my hand into a high voltage section of the transmitter, because the Manager of the broadcast was complaint about the time we had to take off the transmission. I almost lost my thumb with a severe burn due to the magnetic field and attracted my hand to the Xformer. I of course I got a good shock! , but my craziness is still on! (LOL). But, I had found really bad tubes in pre-amps and power amps. Low signal tubes in phone pre-amplifiers. Specially double triodes like 12AT7, 6922, 12AUX7, and power tubes like EL-34/6CA7, 6L6, KT-88, 6550A-C etc. You shold test at least every 6 months all your tubes, if you, of course, are a tube user. And you are right! Clipping is hideous! I still have my CLS, I got them in 1987. I am a CLS lover! Happy listening.

Thanks, kewl story. I too know, from experience, that fingers touching high voltage/current terminations are a no-no. I tell my wife it's the reason why I still have most of my hair. <wink>
 
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