High Sensitivity Speakers that work best with SS

Most often perhaps, but even if peak power is only required say 10% of the time, that power requirement could be 10's if not 100's or even 1000's of X the typical amount of power used. Without such power, the system would be in distortion mode say 10% of the time.

Unsound, with all due respect, please leave it at that. Let others with first hand experience in building and measuring tube and ss amplifiers answer my question. It is a perfectly logical question.

I currently use a Bryston 4BSST amp which is 300wpc into 8 Ohms, 500wpc in 4 Ohms. My JBL S4700s have sensitivity of 94db. It's a good combo to my ears. I'm guessing that JBL being under the ownership of Harman, were voiced using Levinson amps. Levinson amps are high powered too. I prefer Bryston soundwise. But that another discussion there. Anyway, the combo works well, and I'd like to try lower powered Class A solid state and perhaps even tube amps. But I'm not really in any hurry to do so...haste makes waste especially in audio!

NVP,
Your thought process is on the right track.The motivation for Nelson Pass`s First Watt line of amplifiers was high quality sound at low power levels.He recognizes that higher efficiency speakers require 'quality' more so than power quantity.These speakers at normal listening levels may use well under i watt(often only fractions of a watt) of power.Some behemoth amplifiers don`t sound their best at these lower levels(nut some do pretty well).
Regards,

If we take the words "high sensitivity" to mean "high voltage sensitivity", then here is my suggestion: Look for "high sensitivity" combined with a low rated impedance, like 4 ohms or less, and preferably with a nasty-looking impedance curve (a deep dip, perhaps a peak in the midrange, maybe a severe phase angle). Chances are pretty good that such a speaker would work better on solid state amps than on tube amps.

Note that what I've really described here is a "high-sensitivity" speaker that is poorly-suited for tubes, which doesn't necessarily make it superior to a high-sensitivity speaker that works well with either tubes or solid state. Imo, ime, ymmv, etc.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer