A Shockingly Straightforward Query
Good morning to the Community! I am in the market for new amplifiers and have it narrowed down to the Bob Carver 350s or the Theta Prometheus. The selected amps will be driving a pair of Martin Logan 11A speakers. I have heard that the Carver monoblocks are a good fit for my speakers but am still impressed with the Prometheus.
I am intentionally excluding the rest of my gear as I simply don’t want to make this question more complex than it already is. In addition, the option to audition these amps is not feasible.
PLEASE – no haters or flamers!
So, Carver or Theta? Thanks and a great weekend to all!!
an10490413 "MartinLogan doesn’t publish impedance, phase-angle or frequency response curves for this speaker. However, they do state that their impedance dips significantly at higher frequencies. This low impedance, (0.6 ohms at 20KHz) with a corresponding increase in phase-angle suggests that amplifiers that aren’t stable into low impedances shouldn’t be used. MartinLogan’s online FAQs recommend an amplifiers that doubles in wattage between eight and four ohms and again increases its wattage at two ohms. This would seem to eliminate most amplifiers from consideration." This tells you what sort of amp to look for, and it's not tubes, if you want to extract the very best out of these speakers. But if your happy with "a bit of a compromise" the the Carver tubes will be fine. Cheers George |
What I did to decide on the ’best amp for the speakers I want’ was to ask what most other owners of the particular speaker used. For my (Magnepan 3.6) speaker (back in 2010 when I asked) the answer was overwhelmingly Bryston. So lucky for me my dealer sold both Magnepan and Bryston. What I would suggest is doing some Google searches with your speaker name and see what others are using. You may find a consensus. or at least a few most liked brand and models of amplifiers. |
