neutral sounding amplifier

[Dave Blount]

for now its PSB Imagine B

but hopefully upgrading to something better like ATCs in the future

what you currently have is already overkill IMO. Why would be thinking of amplification before you 'knew' where you were headed speaker wise. I know you said 'hopefully' but heck I said the same thing 50 years ago about dating Raquel Welch !

 

[THT89]

I always thought, if damping factor represents the ability to damp/ stop the vibration, weak damping factor will give presentation that we associated it with "muddiness" or "warmness".

Another thing that confuses me, do all kinds of transistors found in various amps give a dead on linear response under any given condition (on audio frequency range) ? ?

 

[chaosrealm93]

what you currently have is already overkill IMO. Why would be thinking of amplification before you 'knew' where you were headed speaker wise. I know you said 'hopefully' but heck I said the same thing 50 years ago about dating Raquel Welch !

what do you mean? the amp or the speaker?

>Why would be thinking of amplification before you 'knew' where you were headed speaker wise

well ideally i would like to get a neutral sounding amp, enjoy it for hte time being and when it comes time to upgrade my speakers, i can take that amp and demo my options, keeping as many variables constant as possible

also, i think my current setup can really benefit from a better amp/DAC
the one in my amp currently is what you'd expect for a $300 receiver and id like to bypass the digital out in my computer altogether and use USB instead

 

[KEW]

well according the the graphs on stereophile, i think the pair im running now dip down to 4 ohms at their lowest, but they are still rated at 8 ohm (i think)

would you say the speakers have to be rated at 4 ohms for this doubling down stuff to really matter?

Unfortunately, manufacturers vary wildly in how honest they are about their impedance rating.
Fortunately, Stereophile provides the entire picture with their graph and commentary:

The B's impedance with its port open (fig.1) dipped to 3.3 ohms in the lower midrange, with a combination of 5.1 ohms magnitude and an electrical phase angle of –49° at 115Hz that will stress amplifiers or receivers not rated into 4 ohms. But the B is otherwise a relatively easy speaker to drive.
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/content/psb-imagine-b-loudspeaker-measurements#DvbR43LzJqvqqv7q.99

Personally, I would discourage you from using a receiver even if it is rated for 4 ohms because a speaker with a profile like yours is going to generate a fair amount of heat without having to deal with having processors in the same box. Probably the biggest advantage of a separate amp is the room and focus on heat dissipation and not having so many heat sensitive components within the case.

But to answer your question, doubling down does not matter in the least.
In my post above, the Emotiva produced 312W at 8 Ohms and 512W at 4 Ohms.
Now consider another amp that truly doubles down at 150W into 8 Ohms and 300W into 4 Ohms.
The Emotive is much more capable of driving a 4 Ohm load at 512WPC (vs 300W), and that is the number that matters more than whether or not it doubles down.

 

[chaosrealm93]

aside:

ive been using a pioneer VSX 520 for many years and its not rated for 4 ohms. will using this amp to power the B's damage the speakers? i play them at moderate to moderately high volumes

 

[Verdinut]

It will probably not damage your speakers, but you could fry your receiver because those speakers will draw too much current from the Pioneer receiver.

If I were you, I would look for a recent Denon or a Marantz receiver. These products will handle the 4 ohm speakers because they are properly designed for such loads.

I suggest that you read the specs and the owner's manual before purchasing another receiver to make sure that it is built to drive 4 ohm speakers.

 

[j_garcia]

It will not damage the receiver if it has been running that way for years. Likely means you don't listen loud enough for it to be an issue, which may be your saving grace. Also, if they are the only pair of speakers in the system, the amp isn't seeing as much load.

Very few receivers can actually handle 4 Ohm speakers. Pretty much all of them will work, but if you expect high output, then you'll need something on the heavier duty side. Amp might be advisable in your case. I had high sensitivity 4 Ohm speakers and even a very hefty receiver wasn't enough to handle them, though I was also pushing 5 of them. I had to initially offload the front 3 to external amps and eventually all of them.