| Re: Popular myths about tube amps [message #99408 is a reply to message #99403] |
Mon, 11 May 2026 11:43  |
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gofar99
Messages: 2025
Registered: May 2010
Location: Southern Arizona
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Illuminati (5th Degree) |
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Hi. Both an easy and hard question to answer. Any speakers that do not provide specs I would pass on. Ones that do ... for tube use should be relatively high sensitivity. I would want 90 db/w or better. If they give input impedance over the audio band width (unlikely) a more or less linear value would be desirable. They will always have resonance peaks and probably drop off in the high end. If it is excessive then many tube amps will probably have difficulty in that range. Another clue is physical size. If the speaker is small (like less than a cubic foot) and they claim wide response they are likely inefficient. See Theil's equations. Essentially loudness, response and box size are interrelated. That doesn't mean that you need something the size of a fridge although that would be really cool. Specifics. Any of Waynes speakers would work very well on tube amps of modest size. Other than them, most 75 era klipsch, Alted Lansing and similar would be fine. For newer stuff the only ones I am sure of are the Martin Logan ESLs like I have. 20 watts rms is plenty to drive you out of the room. Other ESLs are usually inefficient. Also a what I call a useless spec often given for speakers is max power handling. It really doesn't tell you anything useful. I have seen extreme cases where a 3 inch paper cone speaker was listed as able to handle 1000 watts. It would go incandescent immediately.
Good Listening
Bruce
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