Current amp vs Voltage amp

I believe that a traditional SS amp (one that was not designed for an ESL in mind) will likely sound mediocre 'cuz of the high capacitance load that will tend to make that amp oscillate & eventually fail. OTOH, if a SS amp is designed with an ESL in mind (& a few names come to mind that are being used successfully with ESLs & planars) then these SS amps will be effective.

Belief and reality are usually two different things. In this case I invite you to do the math. How much power will an ideal 400 watt SS amp make into 30 ohms and into 3 ohms? If you answer 'about 100 watts and about 900 watts' then you have some grasp of the problem.

Atmasphere, it was not clear to me what was being referred to. Al cleared that up for me - you were referring to speaker design & not amp design. I figured you were speaking of amp design given your vocation.
The "I believe" part was a way of writing in the English language. Maybe I should have written "I believe it to be true....".

Re. the math problem you cited, yes, I did get those values.
So? The amps I'm thinking of are capable of generating these kinds of wattages & sounding musical at the same time. Indeed that's what I was thinking in the 1st place when I wrote that post.....

Re. the math problem you cited, yes, I did get those values.
So? The amps I'm thinking of are capable of generating these kinds of wattages & sounding musical at the same time. Indeed that's what I was thinking in the 1st place when I wrote that post.....

I may have misunderstood, but I think Ralph's point is that a 9 to 1 ratio of power into a load based on its impedance vs. frequency characteristics would likely result in significant frequency variation driven from this amp. He earlier mentioned the higher impedance in the bass and lower impedance in the treble for ESL's and the bass weak and bright sound of SS amps driving them. I am "inferring" what he meant and bring no real expertise to this discussion; however, I am enjoying the discussion and thank all contributors for keeping it going.

I am "inferring" what he meant and bring no real expertise to this discussion; however, I am enjoying the discussion and thank all contributors for keeping it going.

Ditto!!!!

Often as the speakers impedance changes so does the the sensitivity, and that should correspond to flat frequency response from such a ss amp.

I wonder what happens if one listens to nicely produced music, say a big band with lots of brass and high frequency energy live at 105DB? Is it as comfortable as listening to the no NF tube amp at the same level? Its a fair question, I think.

It is. If you sit close up in a concert hall it will easily be that loud.

So? The amps I'm thinking of are capable of generating these kinds of wattages & sounding musical at the same time. Indeed that's what I was thinking in the 1st place when I wrote that post.....

Its rather obvious from those numbers that the amp is going to be challenged at the least, challenged in the regard that it is likely to make too much power at high frequencies and not able to make enough power at low frequencies. And in practice, that is what you hear with them as well. The feedback is supposed to help the amp with this, but because the model is incorrect (IOW the speaker's impedance curve has nothing to do with box resonance) it does not work.

Often as the speakers impedance changes so does the the sensitivity, and that should correspond to flat frequency response from such a ss amp.

This is true for some box speakers- those that are built with this expectation. But as we saw in the ESL example, the model falls apart. When the Voltage Paradigm was being developed (in the late 1950s and early 60s EV and Macintosh led the way on this) ESLs were not a significant part of the market (and they still aren't). So there was not and still is not a concern to make them work right.

Folks, if you've not picked up on this yet, the Voltage Paradigm is all about marketing and the almighty dollar. The ability to double power as you cut impedance in half has little to do with sound quality. It has a lot to do with looking good on paper. And a lot of audiophiles buy with their eyes rather than their ears. OTOH the Power Paradigm is based on the rules of human hearing, which makes it a lot trickier to execute. The Industry wants something convenient, so you can just plug things in (easier to sell). But our ears are more complex than that.

Its the conflict of these two approaches in audio that generates the equipment matching conversations, the tubes vs transistors conversations, and the objectivist/subjectivist conversations. Its really aspects of the same issue. If the Industry was open about talking about this, audiophiles could save a pile of cash and have better sound at the same time. But very little in audio occurs for the sake of better sound. Mostly its about cashing in.