New Vantage soon, how many watts?

[kettle7830]

I hope to have a pair of Vantages soon. I currently have a Cary SLI 80 amp to drive the Vantages, but would like to replace the SLI 80. The amp I would like to replace it with is a Cary 300 SEI (15 watt/channel) 300b amp. I think the 300 b amp would match well with panels. My only question, is 15 watts enough to drive the Vantages?

I normally do not play at very high volumes. The room will be an open 21 by 24 ft with cork floors.

What do you think, should I stick with my SLI 80?

Mark

 

[risabet]

I hope to have a pair of Vantages soon. I currently have a Cary SLI 80 amp to drive the Vantages, but would like to replace the SLI 80. The amp I would like to replace it with is a Cary 300 SEI (15 watt/channel) 300b amp. I think the 300 b amp would match well with panels. My only question, is 15 watts enough to drive the Vantages?

I normally do not play at very high volumes. The room will be an open 21 by 24 ft with cork floors.

What do you think, should I stick with my SLI 80?

Mark

That is an iffy proposition. At 92dB efficiency with the 1 ohm impedance at 20k the Vantage is a tough load. I doubt that any single-ended amp would not have a problem. Try it and see is you can live with it.

 

[MiTT]

Yeah, I think that's going to be a bit of a crap shoot myself. I once tried an Air Tight push pull amp with my ReQuests. On small scale works the sound was AMAZING, but I listen to a lot of large scale symphonic music and Rock. On those types of music the amp just ran out of gas. Now, if you were to bi-amp with an external crossover, you might be able to use something else to relieve the Cary of low frequency responsibilities, but it still might not be enough to overcome the impedence drops required by the panels.

Depending on the type of music you like to listen to, and the size of your room, and the volume levels you prefer, and possibly the phase of the moon, the only way to know with certainty is to arrange an in home loan.

That is a sweet amp though - it might sound absolutely glorious.

Good luck, and let us know what you end up with.

 

[roberto]

I hope to have a pair of Vantages soon. I currently have a Cary SLI 80 amp to drive the Vantages, but would like to replace the SLI 80. The amp I would like to replace it with is a Cary 300 SEI (15 watt/channel) 300b amp. I think the 300 b amp would match well with panels. My only question, is 15 watts enough to drive the Vantages?

I normally do not play at very high volumes. The room will be an open 21 by 24 ft with cork floors.

What do you think, should I stick with my SLI 80?

Mark

Hola Mark...buy quality instead of quantity. Due to tha high sensitiviy of this model, you are can use low power to drive them easy. Qulity watts is far better than quantity watts. Don´t worry to try small power amps, you might like this new feature. Happy listening,
Roberto.

 

[JonFo]

ML's are driven by Current, so rather than look at watts, look for an amp than realistically deliver 30amps or more per channel for your speakers and size of the room.

Also, you'll need an amp that can deal with high back-EMF from these reacive speakers. Most Tube amps can deal with the back-EMF, but not all deliver the amps you'd need.

 

[edwinr]

What do you think, should I stick with my SLI 80?

Mark

The short answer is... yes.

I wouldn't get rid of your Cary until you try it with your new speakers. You might be very surprised... :music:

 

[Bernard]

ML's are driven by Current, so rather than look at watts, look for an amp than realistically deliver 30amps or more per channel for your speakers and size of the room............

The Vantages have powered woofers, so why are you advocating high current capability ? The panels take little current, and the woofers are voltage-sensing devices, so take minimal current.

 

[Spike]

Look here for info on Cary & Summits

Kettle,
Here's the thread that I participated in a while back on the topic of low-powered amplifier and Summits. I think that this information is about as close as you can get to the Cary & Vantage configuration you're asking about: Summits and a 15w Tube Amp?. In this thread, I referenced another thread of powering Vantages with various tube amplifiers (Cary, CJ, VAC) and it may be of relevance to what you're searching for...Bought some Vantages

Now, if you were to bi-amp with an external crossover, you might be able to use something else to relieve the Cary of low frequency responsibilities, but it still might not be enough to overcome the impedence drops required by the panels.

The Vantages are already configured for bi-amping by definition with the use of internal bass-amplifiers. Bi-amping the Vantages (or Summits) is not an optimal use of your budget

Good luck
Spike

 

[David Matz]

I am currently auditioning a BAT 55 wpc tube power amp with the Vantages. It is amazing! Mono-blocks would be even better! My room is only 12 x 14, so it's much smaller than yours. With lower wpc, you trade off the quickness and slam of the more powerful amp is controlling the panel. You also lose the ability to play at very high volumes. Try your amp with your speakers before getting rid of it. The good news is that there are a lot of great amps.

Best of luck!

 

[JonFo]

The Vantages have powered woofers, so why are you advocating high current capability ? The panels take little current, and the woofers are voltage-sensing devices, so take minimal current.

Sorry, that's incorrect. It's the ESL's that are current driven. Look at the ESL topology: You have some passive crossover elements in front of a step up transformer (which is the main load the amp sees) coupled to what electrically looks like a large capacitor, the ESL.

The ESL will generate large back-emf flows, and the transformer presents quite a different load than what a voice-coil speaker would (which is largely resistive vs. reactive for the ESL).

So even Vantages or Summits, with their powered woofers, still present low impedance, highly reactive loads to their amps, which requires high current to drive well.

For way more detail and background on this topic, please read Roger Sanders reasoning’s for why ESL's need amps designed to handle their peculiar loads.

http://www.sanderssoundsystems.com/ESL Amp White Paper.htm

 

[magoo]

I'm also a vantage owner (you have a great treat coming!) and run mine with a Unison Reseach S6 valve amp, which kicks out around 30w.....and have absolutely no complaints, so as others have said, hang onto your current amp & prepare to be amazed:music:

Regards
Magoo

 

[slowGEEZR]

Taken from the white paper...
"To take an extreme example, let's look at two amplifiers, both rated at 100 watts. Let's say that one has a 2 volt power supply that delivers 50 amps of current. The other amp's power supply produces 50 volts at 2 amps. Although both amplifiers generate 100 watts, the one with the 50 volt power supply will drive an ESL to much louder levels than will the two volt one."
"An amplifier must deliver more current as the impedance of the speaker decreases."
"The output impedance of an amplifier must be lower than the impedance of the speaker, or current clipping will result."
"ESLs are voltage operated devices. The higher an amplifier's power supply voltage, the louder it can play an ESL (assuming it can also deliver sufficient current)."

So, you need an amp with high voltage at all impedences, high current at low impedences. Right?

 

[Bernard]

From Sanders' paper:

"In a capacitor, the impedance is inversely proportional to frequency. So an ESL will have a high impedance at low frequencies, and a very low impedance at high frequencies -- typically 2 ohms or lower."

This implies that you have to deliver larger amounts of current at higher frequencies, BUT, look at musical content. The RIAA curve for LPs was developed because high frequencies would get lost in noise if they were not boosted prior to being recorded, i.e. the voltages for music at higher frequencies are lower, so you do not have to deliver as much current. I imagine that even at full blast a triangle does not need much current.

.....Sorry, that's incorrect. It's the ESL's that are current driven.....

But from Sanders' paper: "ESLs are voltage operated devices".

Typically voltage-operated devices (e.g. preamps) do not require large amounts of current. Note: I am not saying that they do not require current, just that it is not as large as is implied in the paper when you consider the musical spectrum.

I used to be quite happy driving my Quad ESL 57's with only 25 watts/channel (Bedini SS Class A), until I tried a grotty old Dyna ST-70 with 30-year old tubes, but that's another story......I never looked back.

I have one basic problem with the concept of using skinny wires with anything that pushes large amounts of current - skinny wires have high resistance, so part of the signal gets dissipated as heat.