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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

Showing 2 responses by elizabeth

elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
Advice... yeah.
I bought a Pair of Infinity RSIIa speakers because i loved them. Added an average amp and was satisfied, that was 25 years ago.
Then I bought a Forte' 4a amp. that was good with the Infinities.
Then I bought a pair of B&W 805s. They were OK. but I missed the dipole sound.
So I bought a pair of Magnepan 3.6s. And since i wanted THOSE speakers, I checked around and the concensus was that Bryston amp paired up good with Maggies.
So I auditioned the combo and was satisfied. And bought a Bryston $B-SST2 for my Maggies.

Really IMO most folks fall in love with some SPEAKER first, then search for the amp for it.
I do not think very many folks buy an AMP, and then look for a speaker to go with the amp?
And i would say the amp and speaker are a pair, and need to work together well. And the cost is comparable. Especially when one gets into better speakers. You need to have a equally good amp.
(My amp is probably at the bottom of what the speakers COULD use IMO..., but it is fine for me. Some bigger Amps though, i am certain, could make my Maggies sing even better.. but money is an issue.)
elizabeth
6,726 posts
 
The comment of spending money on the speakers... The old advice as to spend 50% of your budget on speakers. Well for a low total value system that may be true. But once folks are in the big money (say $10,000. systems (could be $6K $20K) then the percentages change to less than half for the speakers, and more on the electronics.
I personally think it is because once your speakers are pretty transparent ($4,000 up) then you ARE going to note tthe big improvement with better elecctronics.
((And those amount are not set, just the idea of more, and not more as $50,000.!)
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