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Amp more important than speakers?

The common wisdom seems to be the opposite (at least from speaker makers), but I have tried the many speakers that have come thru my house on lesser amps or my midfi A/V receiver and something was always very wrong, and things often sounded worse than cheap speakers.
On the other hand, I have tried many humble speakers on my my really good amps (& source) and heard really fine results.

Recently I tried my Harbeth SHL5s (& previously my Aerial 10Ts, Piega P10s, and others) on the receiver or even my Onkyo A9555 (which is nice with my 1985 Ohm Walsh 4s, which I consider mid-fi), and the 3 high end speakers sounded boomy, bland, opaque.

But when I tried even really cheap speakers on my main setup (Edge NL12.1 w/tube preamp) I got very nice results
(old Celestion SL6s, little Jensen midfi speakers).

So I don't think it's a waste of resources to get great amplification and sources even for more humble speakers.
My Harbeth SHL5s *really* benefit from amps & sources that are far more expensive than the Harbeths.

Once I had Aerial 10Ts that sounded like new speakers with vocals to die for when I drove them with a Pass X350 to replace an Aragon 8008.

Oh well, thanks for reading my rambling thoughts here...

So I think I would avoid pairing good speakers with lesser amps,
rgs92
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
4,163 posts
 
Well executed active speakers the way to go. They have the potential to sound better than their passive counterparts and make the amp vs. speaker question moot.
jallen
502 posts
 
A speaker is merely the end of the chain. In the past I had speakers, then looked for an amp. Now I bought the amp first and am auditioning speakers to mate with it. Both approaches can work if you are patient enough. Trust your ears...jallen
inna
5,245 posts
 
I would say that unless one must use low power SET amp, speakers first. However, eventually yes if you want to bring the most out of your speakers the amp together with pre-amp will cost more than the speakers, perhaps much more; double the price is quite realistic and I think reasonable.
lrsky
1,118 posts
 
Two truths...you can't do without a good pair of speakers, and you can't do without a good amp...HOWEVER...
In my experience, I could always have better, (not the best of course) sound with great speakers, compromising on the amplification.
I've told the story a million times--but...

Back in 1989, I'd purposely match the THIEL CS5's with the Adcom 535, a sixty (60WPC) watt amp, just to make people aware of how important speakers are in the audio equation.
Were they as good as they could be, of course not.
On the other hand, there was no way that I could have teamed a $13,000 amp with any $300 pair of speakers and come up with anything comparable...its simply not possible.
As basic as this may seem it makes sense as to the overall pecking order IMHO.
Of course, the best of both is the best...but if one has to make a compromise in the short term make it on electronics. SHORT TERM...save for the best to go with your great speakers, then you'll have the magic.

Good listening,
Larry
clio09
2,978 posts
 
I learned that voicing the speaker to the room and then getting an amp that played nice with the speakers was the way to go for me.

As an aside, at two recent CA audio shows I visited the Tonian Labs room. The speakers demoed were in the $5k range, the associated integrated amp and source combined were less than $500. There must be something to this speaker thing because at both shows that room was in my top 5.
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