Amps and speakers

[dtr20]

So I purchased my belles about a year and a half ago, as many of you know. The belles never sounded good until recently when my friend brought over a vintage Sony amp, which I immediately bought from him. The speakers sound great now. I originally hooked them up to my old harman kardon receiver, my father's onkyo, and his old integra receiver and they didn't sound good, but this old 30 watts per channel Sony makes them sing beautifully.

Why?

My father bought a pair of kg2s and the same thing happens. On his onkyo, they sound terrible, but on his vintage parasound, they sound great. My KLF 10s,20s,and 30s sound great on my old harman kardon and my new denon.

So is the common denominator the age of the speaker needs to match the amp? We would love to have a better understanding of this, so thanks for your help.

[Carbon_66]

It's not "matching", It's quality power. 

[derrickdj1]

There is a certain synergy between old speakers and amp.  The amps at that time were specifically design to run speakers of that era.  Congrats and enjoy.

[twistedcrankcammer]

Todays multi channel surround sound receivers do not have as big a power supply for 5 or 9 channels as old 2 channel receivers or a quality outboard amp.

Take a look at a late 70's / early 80's Marantz, or I had a Pioneer SX-3900 that I bought new back then. I don't remember for sure, but it seemed like that Pioneer weighed about 70 ponds. Now, I use four separate vintage Nakamichi amps that weigh just shy of 75 pounds each, that almost 300 ponds for my 7 channels of amplification. There is a major difference in build quality in these vintage pieces that you just cannot get without spending thousands of dollars literally!

Go ahead and look on EBay for a nice vintage Pioneer SX-3900 from around 1980. They have 120 watts per channel times two channels and still bring $1,000 for a nice example.

roger

Edited March 2, 2016 by twistedcrankcammer

[Wolfbane]

Assuming the smaller bits of an amp are all quality components if you can barely lift it you'll like it. If you can't lift it you'll probably like it even more.

[Chris A]

I originally hooked them up to my old harman kardon receiver, my father's onkyo, and his old integra receiver and they didn't sound good, but this old 30 watts per channel Sony makes them sing beautifully. Why?...So is the common denominator the age of the speaker needs to match the amp?

 

The answer to your second question is "no".

 

The answer to your first is: "first, you've got to tell us some more".  Fairly complete answers to all of these questions are important in order to answer your question:

 

1) How loud are you playing them when you decided that a certain amplifier/receiver sounds better?

2) What exactly "sounds better"?  Bass? Treble? Midrange? Soundstage/imaging?

3) Where are your loudspeakers located in-room and what are the approximate dimensions of that room?  Do you have a picture?

 

Generally, the older amplifiers (like Sony, Yamaha, Pioneer, Sansui, and even Marantz) used class AB solid state designs and two amplifier channels, whereas nowadays AVRs are using 6+ channels and generally very inexpensive class D amplifiers.  The AVRs from about 10-15 years ago used lower quality power supplies and class d amplifiers to save money.  The much older stereo receivers using class AB amplifiers only had two channels, so the money wrapped up in the power supplies wasn't nearly an issue--they just used better power supplies.

 

I've found that the preamps in all the brand name receivers are about the same quality, but the amplifiers in the receivers vary quite a bit in quality.  I use an AVP and external class A or class AB amplifiers for that reason. 

 

Starting about 10-15 years ago, B&O started marketing "ICEpower" class D amplifiers for OEMs to use in their receivers, and the quality of the sound in those units employing ICEpower apparently started to improve significantly over the competition's garden-variety class D amplifiers and smallish power supplies (ICEpower today typically uses individual power supplies for each channel or pair of channels).

 

Chris

[J M O N]

Regarding the receivers that didn't sound good, were they all home theater receivers?

[dtr20]

Regarding the receivers that didn't sound good, were they all home theater receivers?

Yea, they were all home theater receivers set to 2 channel.

[J M O N]

There is your problem -- my Klipschorns sounded very average the one time I connected them directly to an AVR.  Most HT receivers don't have good amplifiers in them -- how can they, they have to have five (or more) of them in that one box along with all the other necessary stuff.  I'm sure there are some that will sound good, but they are likely the very expensive ones.  For pure 2-channel listening, you're best off getting a good 2-channel amp. There are many flavors of them and even then some are better than others (but most will be better than your average AVR).

Edited March 5, 2016 by JMON