Confused by ICE applications

I don't think Onkyo uses an ICE module for its A-9555 class D integrated. Its damping factor spec is a mere 25, but you'd never know if from the sound in my rig. It's clean, tight, full, and extended. Anything but woofy or characterized by overhang. And I've been A-B'ing it with a VSP TransMOS 150, which has a damping factor around 1000.

In my rig, to the Onkyo's advantage (concerning damping factor) the woofers are a mere 5.5" in diameter, but to its challenge, one is augmented by a passive radiator and the other by a tuned port. Yet the bass is clean and totally tuneful.

Johnnyb53 - Onkyo is 85W and the smallest Icepower, as far as I know, is 100W/8ohm.

Damping factor is a little confusing. My Icepower has DF=4000 at low frequencies. Is it the reason for its tight bass? Atmasphere transformeless tube amps have DF=1.5 and very good sound.

Sometimes I get impression that sound is inversely proportional to specifications. Buying gear by good specifications is probably the biggest mistake.

As for small woofers - ask any bass player about bass rigs with good bass definition and he will tell you to look for stacks with a lot of 10" speakers. Larger 15" or 18" are also in use but have poor definition.

Few small speakers are far better than one large - just look at Dali Megaline design (perfect).

Amps with high damping factors can cause a reduction in perceived bass in speakers with limited low frequency capability. For example, when the midrange driver is also handling the lower frequencies.

The was an article at 6 Moons a while back discussing the optimum damping factor varying by speaker design.

Damping factor is not a ICEPower characteristic per se. There's been a lot of discussion of DF in other threads. DF is only one of a series of things to consider when matching a speaker and amp and maximizing the amp's ability to control the speaker's drivers. Some speakers need a lot of damping and others do not.

He's not going to tell you exactly what he does, but Rowland does a lot of things beside add Power Factor Correction to his latest amps (Continuum 500 and 312). He does enough that representatives from B&O have a hard time recognizing their ICEPower units. What matters is how well it works. Listen and hear for yourself.

Dave

Dcstep - My Rowland model 102 has two 200ASC modules inside (identical to picture in datasheet of 200ASC) and nothing else - just case. It is pretty much the same amp as Bel Canto S300 with different case. There might be some tweeking involved.