Oddyssey/Ascent advices

[Thom]

Hi there,

I'm from Holland and I just noticed this wonderful site! I'm sure there's a lot to be found here, so far I've only been googeling around.

I am considering a second hand purchase of Oddyssey or Ascent. My amp is Mark Levinson pre no. 28 and a power no. 29. This amp has 100 W in 4 ohm. Cd player is a nice dutch product Ah! Tjoeb reference with tube output.

I have some questions and I hope you can give me some advices on the following:
- I read that these ML are power hungry. Will my 'baby Levinson' be powerful enough for these speakers?
- In what ways does an Oddyssey perform better than the Ascent(i)?
- What should I pay special attention to when I audition a second hand pair?

Thanks, Tom

 

[Craig]

To be honest that size amp is not a very good match for these speakers. If it were a tube amplifier then that would be fine but for a solid state amp it's a little low for most electrostats.

The Odyssey and Ascents are both excellent speakers. I've previuosly owned both but now use Summits. My son now owns the Ascents. I drive my Summits with a 24 watt tube amp and it sounds beautiful but tube power is very different than SS and the Summits are much more sensitive than traditional non-powered hybrid electrostatic speakers. I suspect that my 24 watt tube amp provides more current than your solid state amp.

Your Mark Levison amp can be used to drive these speakers but it is a little underpowered at 100 watts/4 ohms. I believe that is also below factory recommended specs for the Ascents/Odysseys. You would need to play at moderate to low volumes otherwise the amp will be straining and will not sound as well as it should. The Odysseys are a little more sensitive than the Ascents but both need plenty of amplification to perform their best.

If you get the speakers then you should really plan to get an amp more suitable for these speakers to get the most out of them. With the appropriate amp to drive them properly you'll certainly enjoy them much more, especially in the bass department.

 

[Pcar928fan]

To be honest that size amp is not a very good match for these speakers. If it were a tube amplifier then that would be fine but for a solid state amp it's a little low for most electrostats.

Can't speak to how tube amps deliver their power, but I have heard very low rated tube amps (with regard to wattage) that seemed to crank it out pretty dang good and I have seen pretty highly rated SS amps that could not drive ML's for SQUAT!

I used to drive my Prodigy (as well as the rest of the 7.1 channel system) with a Pioneer receiver rated at something like 135wpc or maybe it was 150wpc, I can't remember now, but it was the VSX49Tx flagship model and when I switched over to Rotel seperates it was a WORLD of difference, but of course I went WAY up in power to 320wpc for the fronts and 200wpc for the rest of the system.