WooHoo

[shank2001]

Hey Big Busa,

People are going to hate me, but there is nothing wrong with driving Khorns or any other Klipsch speaker with a high power amp, as long as it is a good amp, and runs very clean at low power outputs, preferably Class A. The point is, clipping is the enemy, not high power. Clipping will destroy a speaker much faster than high power. The Khorns can easily handle 100 watts continuous, and much higher peaks, so don't worry about it. Your ears would give out way before the Khorns.

I mean lets face it, even with a 90db 1watt 1 meter speaker, one rarely uses above a watt except in transient peaks. 90db is pretty loud.

As for using Tubes with the Khorn, that is a matter of personal taste. Yes I am sure the Khorns will sound great with a tube amp to some people. But it is not that the Khorns were designed just to sound good with tubes. Yes they were made sensitive so that the low watt amps of the time could drive them, but that does not mean SS is not good with them as well. If you think about it, the whole goal is to reproduce the recorded signal exactly under varying impedences etc. If an amp is good at that then it will sound good with any speaker.

In fact SS amps are just like tube amps, in that the higher watts they put out the more distortion, so a high power amp driven at low levels is MUCH more accurate than a low power tube driven at a higher percentage of its total power. The SS high power amp putting out 2 watts continuous would barely stress the amp at all and would never clip and distortion would be very very low, but 2 watts continuous out of a 10 watt tube amp would definitely be clipping at times. Don't tell me that SS amps are designed to sound best at high watt output, that is simply not true. SS amps are most accurate at low volume levels. They are just better at keeping that same level of performance at higher wattages as well. But the lower the volume level, the better ANY amp will perform.

So my point is, unless you absolutely love the sound of a tube amp, the Khorns will sound great with a SS amp. If you like SS sound now, then you will love SS sound on a Khorn. One cannot deny that if you want an unaltered and more pure signal and strong bass, nothing beats a SS amp. If you like the harmonic distortion and other things etc. that even the most expensive tubes have problems with, then go for tubes. Some people like that sound, but it is distortion. If a SS manufacturer tried to sell a SS amp with the distortions of a tube amp they would be run out of town on a rail. If a speaker needs a tube amp in order to sound good, that, to me, is a bad speaker. The key is you need a good amp with Klipsch speakers because they are so revealing, regardless if it is tube or SS. Tubes might sound better because they hide the bad sounding distortions with other distortions that are more pleasing, but they are still distortions. But a GOOD SS amp will sound the best in most situations.

Regards,

Sean

[JCturboT]

Sean,

Waiting for the floodgates to open...

Jeff

[BigBusa]

sean thanks for the input. I thought you were my friend Kevin for a second. He has written papers on this very subject (tube vs SS). He has done blind tests and the people cannot reliably pick which is the tube and which is the SS amp. They sound so similar it is nearly impossible to tell them apart ...according to him.

I've had my share of tube amps but never with Khorns. I will try the 35wpc scott 340 when Craig is done with it. I'll make a personal decision then.

As for dynaco st400's bridged to 600w mono ...well, they're just too noisy to be used with khorns. Even in regular, stock 200wpc stereo mode some hiss can be heard at zero volume.

I have a friend who swears by the bryston 4b. If I don't like the Scott 340b I may go that route. The dynacos are just a bit too noisy.

[itsmyforte]

the noise may be your PRE and not the dynaco's. i know my acurus is dead quiet, soon as i turn on the adcom pre. i hear noise. gotta get me a better pre.

[sunnysal]

I am not a scott 340 should be the key to deciding if tubes are for you or not...I have no experience with that amp but I suspect that it is not the ne plus ultra in tube amplification (no critique intended it could be a fine amp) before writing off tube amplification for your k-horns be sure you audition some great repesentatives of the genre, ok? I do agree that a great SS amp will work well with the k-horns, I had a friend bring over a creek intergated once that sounded very nice, as did a NAD and leo k's little PWM amplifier. I think in your case tube or SS, you need to go for quality not quanitity...1-30 great watts instead of 50-200 noisy watts. regards, tony

[BigBusa]

Tony Craig owns a scott 340B himself so I'm assuming it's one of the better affordable tube receivers availible. Craig might be able to better explain the 340B's place in the tube power food chain.

I'd like to try out as many as possible though. I may be picking up a fisher x100-3 in the near future ...

[jt1stcav]

Everyone here bring up good points about proper amplification and source components. I know for a fact that tube amps are not the only means to great sound with Klipsch horn speakers (and I have nothing against tube components...I just ordered a 6SN7 SRPP line stage pre for my SS McIntosh amp that should arrive in a few weeks). Finding the right matchup between Klipschorns and amplification (SET, PP, or SS) is tricky for accurate sound, but not impossible, same as for room size, placement, and room acoustics. I too can relate with a small room; my system is in an acoustically dead 12 X 13.5 X 8 foot room that keeps it from sounding as good as I know it can, and I plan on installing my system in my livelier formal living room in the near future that's more than twice the size of the present room it's in now.

The best sounding audio system I ever heard came from two pairs of Klipschorns, powered by two Carver M-500t 250 WPC stereo transistor power amplifiers...with a Carver C-4000 preamp, and two Nakamichi 680ZX cassette decks for the only sources (this was way back in '80). The room this particular system was in was the size of a small ballroom...it was huge (you should've seen this house...wow)! Granted, the room was enormous, and maybe too lively for some audiophiles' tastes. All I remember is that music played back on this system (especially tapes recorded of live performances from the very same room) sounded georgous and lifelike! All on a pair of high powered SS amps, no less. Your big ol' Dynacos are great amps, but perhaps not the proper amps for your "new" Klipschorns; they would be better served driving JBLs or other less efficient loudspeakers other than super-sensitive Khorns. I don't recall any noticable hum with the quad Khorns and twin Carver amps, but that was over 23 years ago now, plus tape hiss was never completely eliminated, even with Dolby C/dbx noise reduction. You may just have to decide on replacing your modified Dynacos if you're going to continue using your Khorns with them...there are many more SS and tubed choices that can better match your system/sources/room/musical tastes, etc.

Good luck!

[hurdy_gurdyman]

Concerning high powered ss amps vs low powered amps, here's something to think about. A ss amp puts ot it's cleanest measured distortion when it's driven near it's full power. That's also where most published specs of a given amp are taken. When the same amp is measured at one hundreth of a watt, the distortion is much worse, typically. On many ss amps, you can actually hear the grain increase at very low power. This may be one of the reasons so many people prefer low to medium powered tube amps with high efficiency speakers. Tube amps are typically at their cleanest measured distortion at very low power ratings (one watt and less) and start distorting a lot more as they approach full power. Makes sense to use lower powered tubes on a very high efficiency speaker, and use high powered ss on low to mid efficiency speakers. This is where both amps and speakers are happiest.

Incidently, I own both high power (200 watts/ch) ss and modest powered (20 watts/ch) tubes, and have done a lot of listening to both. For any well damped speaker above 95 dB sensitivity, I'll take the noticably cleaner sound of tubes. On lower efficiency speakers, ss can actually sound better.

Dave

[shank2001]

Hey Hurdy,

While that may be true that the distortion lowers with higher power on a SS amp, the distortion is still much lower than a tube amp at the same low power output. For example the distortion % at .1 watt for the Aragon 8008ST is .03% and drops to .0025% at 90 watts! Name one tube amp that has .03% distortion at .1 watt. I don't think there is one... I could be wrong though.

Here is the Aragon's graph... it is on the bottom:

http://www.stereophile.com/fullarchives.cgi?562

Take the Hovland Sapphire tube amp in comparison (first review I could find)... at $8,000 dollars each.

At .1 watt it is already at .3% distortion and it goes up quickly from there. That is an order of magnitude higher at .1 watt than the high power Aragon, and it gets worse and worse the higher you go because the SS distortion drops while the tubes rise.

How about the Audiopax Model Eighty Eight monoblock power amplifier at $9,970 a pair. At .1 watt there is almost .2% distortion, and goes up very linearly from there. Again... more than the Aragon. At 1 watt it was at .5%, and at 1% THD it was able to put out 5.2 watts. This distortion would definitely be noticable and even with Khorns you could reach 5.2 watts pretty easy at times, and definitely 1 watt especially in the bass range. Is the difference at .1 watt audible? I don't think many could tell the difference actually... but still the whole notion of high power SS amps at low power are not performing well is just simply not true.

By the way .1 watt on the Khorns would be about 93db, so that would be a pretty good volume, most people would hit a .1 average quite often. I don't know how much distortion a SS amp puts out at 1/100 of a watt because no reveiws go down that far. But even if it doubled it would still only be .06%, to get to .2% it would have to jump 6.66 times higher! So I doubt it would be higher at 1/100th by much.

Regards,

Sean

[mike stehr]

I had '95 Chorus II's with a 440 watt Yamaha amp, and the 50 watt pre-amp, MX-1, CX-1.

It had a OK sound at low volumes, high volumes was overkill and the Chorus II's tore your head off.

Once I tried tubes with the Chorus II's, I'll never go back. The speakers had a more open lively sound at low levels, up to moderate levels.

I now have Cornwalls with tubes, and it's all about preference.

Do folks listen to distortion specs?

But I'm a poor slob, who has to cobble vintage tube gear to get quality sound. And I do it for peanuts.

Preference.

[Marvel]

----------------

While that may be true that the distortion lowers with higher power on a SS amp, the distortion is still much lower than a tube amp at the same low power output. For example the distortion % at .1 watt for the Aragon 8008ST is .03% and drops to .0025% at 90 watts! Name one tube amp that has .03% distortion at .1 watt. I don't think there is one... I could be wrong though.

Here is the Aragon's graph... it is on the bottom:

http://www.stereophile.com/fullarchives.cgi?562

Take the Hovland Sapphire tube amp in comparison (first review I could find)... at $8,000 dollars each.

At .1 watt it is already at .3% distortion and it goes up quickly from there. That is an order of magnitude higher at .1 watt than the high power Aragon, and it gets worse and worse the higher you go because the SS distortion drops while the tubes rise.

How about the Audiopax Model Eighty Eight monoblock power amplifier at $9,970 a pair. At .1 watt there is almost .2% distortion, and goes up very linearly from there. Again... more than the Aragon. At 1 watt it was at .5%, and at 1% THD it was able to put out 5.2 watts. This distortion would definitely be noticable and even with Khorns you could reach 5.2 watts pretty easy at times, and definitely 1 watt especially in the bass range. Is the difference at .1 watt audible? I don't think many could tell the difference actually... but still the whole notion of high power SS amps at low power are not performing well is just simply not true.

By the way .1 watt on the Khorns would be about 93db, so that would be a pretty good volume, most people would hit a .1 average quite often. I don't know how much distortion a SS amp puts out at 1/100 of a watt because no reveiws go down that far.

But even if it doubled it would still only be .06%, to get to .2% it would have to jump 6.66 times higher! So I doubt it would be higher at 1/100th by much.

Regards,

Sean

----------------

http://www.sasaudiolabs.com/30ppt.htm

This might be close enough. Not even that expensive. Didn't take me long to find.

Marvel

[hurdy_gurdyman]

----------------

On 10/22/2003 8:09:52 PM shank2001 wrote:

Hey Hurdy,

While that may be true that the distortion lowers with higher power on a SS amp, the distortion is still much lower than a tube amp at the same low power output. For example the distortion % at .1 watt for the Aragon 8008ST is .03% and drops to .0025% at 90 watts! Name one tube amp that has .03% distortion at .1 watt. I don't think there is one... I could be wrong though.

Here is the Aragon's graph... it is on the bottom:

http://www.stereophile.com/fullarchives.cgi?562

Take the Hovland Sapphire tube amp in comparison (first review I could find)... at $8,000 dollars each.

At .1 watt it is already at .3% distortion and it goes up quickly from there. That is an order of magnitude higher at .1 watt than the high power Aragon, and it gets worse and worse the higher you go because the SS distortion drops while the tubes rise.

How about the Audiopax Model Eighty Eight monoblock power amplifier at $9,970 a pair. At .1 watt there is almost .2% distortion, and goes up very linearly from there. Again... more than the Aragon. At 1 watt it was at .5%, and at 1% THD it was able to put out 5.2 watts. This distortion would definitely be noticable and even with Khorns you could reach 5.2 watts pretty easy at times, and definitely 1 watt especially in the bass range. Is the difference at .1 watt audible? I don't think many could tell the difference actually... but still the whole notion of high power SS amps at low power are not performing well is just simply not true.

By the way .1 watt on the Khorns would be about 93db, so that would be a pretty good volume, most people would hit a .1 average quite often. I don't know how much distortion a SS amp puts out at 1/100 of a watt because no reveiws go down that far.

But even if it doubled it would still only be .06%, to get to .2% it would have to jump 6.66 times higher! So I doubt it would be higher at 1/100th by much.

Regards,

Sean

----------------

Tube amps distort differently then ss. While it's true that ss has lower THD, if you break up the distortion into differnt frequency bands, you'll discover that the higher up in frequency you go with a tube amp, the lower the harmonic distotion gets, just like real musical instruments, while ss amps stay about the same all the way through, which is not something our ears find natural or pleasent sounding. This is believed to be the biggest factor in why so many people prefer tube amps with high efficiency speakers. The difference between ss and tubes can clearly be heard by anyone with good hearing. Most prefer tubes for high efficiency speakers while most prefer ss for low efficiency speakers. Each has it's place and do a good job with the right speaker. No one has yet made the universal amp (at least not at a realistic price) for all speakers. Get the one that works best for the speaker being used. I've tried several high powered ss amps. I'll stick with good tubes which can be bought for a vew hundred dollars and sound so much better with my Klipsch Heresys and my EV fullrange open baffles. If I ever decide to go back to a low efficiency speaker (fat chance), I'll go back to ss.

Dave