Hi efficient speaker, bass problems

Tmsorosk,
It looks like you have answered your own question. When listening to high sensitivity speakers your friends were using low powered tubed amps. We have all talked all around your question.There are some tubed amps with very good control, but many low powered amps, even though they play adequate and at times good bass, often they don't have the control of higher powered tubes or most solid state amps. It is typically not caused by a well designed speaker. Tim

My gut instinct tells me that even any well designed speaker, high or low efficiency, is likely to have bass deficiencies unless setup properly and matched to the right amp and associated gear.

Also, I would not expect most amps to deliver equally excellent bass performance on both high and low efficiency speaker designs.

Other than these things, I would say the devil is all in the details....

Hi Mapman,
I am currently using a very highly modified old Pure Class A Sumo Nine. I am using it on 86db 4 ohm speakers and have used it on 97db 8 ohm speakers as well as a few others, I have heard nothing but excellent bass in weight, speed and control from this amplifier. I see no reason that most well designed solid state amplifiers could not give good bass on most speakers, there are exceptions of course (kappa 9 comes to mind). Good tubed amps also do a great job as long as the speakers load stays out of the capacitive region (neutral to inductive load).

TIm,

That's good to know.

I don't doubt many good amps would sound quite excellent with both.

I just wonder though if any one is truly optimal in both cases or if the two extremes require different amp characteristics for optimal results in both cases?

Of course, "optimal" is a subjective thing, but in general I am hard pressed to recall where two different speaker/amp combos sounded exactly the same an an a/b test.

If they sound different, then each individual will have to prefer one over the other, right?

Tmsorosk, If I understand you correctly, I hear the same thing, you are not alone.