I copied below John Atkinson's bench tests of the Revel Ultima Salon 2, a speaker that most would agree is a very high end performer. While the impedance and phase angle plots are more "user friendly" than my Paradigm S8s, it is important to note that even the mighty Revel's impedance plots have peaks and valleys. The low being a little less than 4 ohms in the bass region, with a high of 14 ohms in the mid/treble FR range.
So . . . based on the comments above, I would expect that if the Revels were driven by a "pure" Power Paradigm amp with a relatively high output impedance, the acoustic presentation could very well be colored to some extent in the mid/treble FR range. But as Al said, such may not necessarily be the case because many tube amps are configured to have lower output impedances than one might expect, probably because of NF.
In light of the bench test results of the ARC Ref 150 and VS-115, see above, if those amps were used to drive the Revels, I surmise that the acoustic coloration might not be too far off, especially if the 4 ohm taps are used. I don't know if the Ref 150 or VS-115 have enough "oomph" to get the best out of the Revels, but I don't think you would get a headache listening to them.
Btw, I seem to recall that the Revel web site recommends a high current/high output SS amp to get the best results out of the Revels. I understand that the Revels are somewhat inefficient.
I hope our membership reads these OPs because I think there is much to learn. I think this OP and other OPs are asking good questions.
Btw, btw, as I am retraining my ears to get used to listening to my S8s driven off the 4 ohm tap, I don't think the S8s sound all that bad -- maybe even better than before. It's probably all in my head. ;>')
Cheers,
http://www.stereophile.com/content/revel-ultima-salon2-loudspeaker-measurements
So . . . based on the comments above, I would expect that if the Revels were driven by a "pure" Power Paradigm amp with a relatively high output impedance, the acoustic presentation could very well be colored to some extent in the mid/treble FR range. But as Al said, such may not necessarily be the case because many tube amps are configured to have lower output impedances than one might expect, probably because of NF.
In light of the bench test results of the ARC Ref 150 and VS-115, see above, if those amps were used to drive the Revels, I surmise that the acoustic coloration might not be too far off, especially if the 4 ohm taps are used. I don't know if the Ref 150 or VS-115 have enough "oomph" to get the best out of the Revels, but I don't think you would get a headache listening to them.
Btw, I seem to recall that the Revel web site recommends a high current/high output SS amp to get the best results out of the Revels. I understand that the Revels are somewhat inefficient.
I hope our membership reads these OPs because I think there is much to learn. I think this OP and other OPs are asking good questions.
Btw, btw, as I am retraining my ears to get used to listening to my S8s driven off the 4 ohm tap, I don't think the S8s sound all that bad -- maybe even better than before. It's probably all in my head. ;>')
Cheers,
http://www.stereophile.com/content/revel-ultima-salon2-loudspeaker-measurements