[flipper]

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 17:13:27 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Through an estate sale I recently came into two monoblock 9W KT88 Qucksilver Amps and two Mcintosh XR 1051 speakers. I have connected them together but the amplifier is severely underpowered for the speakers. I need some advice. Should I get smaller bookshelf speakers to match the amp w a sub or just EQ the speakers for some heaver low-end response? Any thoughts ideas are welcome.


Speakers are like these http://mcc.berners.ch/speakers/XR1051.pdf
amps like these http://www.quicksilveraudio.com/prod...MonoManual.pdf

Joe

'Low wattage' tube amplifiers need high efficiency speakers and at 82
dB SPL those XR1051s are on the other end of the scale. You're not
likely to 'improve' things by hacking on them and 'bookshelf' speakers
are not very efficient either.

92 dB speakers would make the amp 'sound like' 90 Watts (10 dB
increase in sound output power), compared to the 9 Watt going into the
Macs, and double the perceived 'loudness' but you're starting at a low
comparison point with the Macs.

Your 'average everyday' speaker system is usually on the order of 88
dB so, as a point of comparison, 98 dB speakers with the 9 Watt
Quicksilvers should sound comparable in loudness to a typical everyday
90 (100 close enough) Watt amp into 'average everyday' 88 dB speakers.

Bass extension would depend on the speakers if one accepts the amp's
claim of 20 Hz on the low end although they neglect mentioning the
roll off. I.E. whether that power bandwidth is +- 3 dB, 1 dB, 10 dB, a
million dB.

One 'traditional' spec is +- 3 dB but when not mentioned you don't
know. By comparison, though, speakers often use +- 10 dB for the
touted bandwidth so, again, the speaker system usually dominates.