Why are ML so hard on amplifiers??

[dmusoke]

Yes, and if you remember David Hafler Co. They made a power amp that you could short the speaker terminals, and it could handle the short circuit. The amp runned a high temperature with heavy mass heat sinks. So, it could drive these low impedance and the cost was very cheap, and truly high end product. Also, Mark Levinson had the Model 2 monoblocks, they were designed to drive the famous HQD system. Hartley-Quad-Decca. That was in the early 80s. The amps were class A @ 25W/ch. Their weight were about 80 pounds each. Threshold was another brand that could handle very low impedance. Bedini, Sumo, Forte, are others. The impedance is an AC resistance and varies depending of the frequency. Yes, 1 ohms it very, very low. Very difficult to drive, but not impossible. Frank Van Alstine is other manufacture that is on the high end since long time ago. But, I read and understand your point. Why to bother designing 1 ohm speaker, if there are only just a few power amps that could handly it, right? Well, the answer is that there are amps that did use those speakers as a tool design. ML was another brand that many audio manufactures used it as a tool design, as I recall, Mark Levinson, Conrad Johnson, Audio Research, Krell, Aragon, Bryston, Acurus, Classe, Sonic Frontiers, Jef Rowland, Spectral, to name a few. Happy listening!

Well said Roberto ...and thanks for the history lesson

 

[Rich]

State of the art in speaker design doesn't mean designing a speaker to have at ultra low impedances.

It's not like they set out with the goal to design a speaker that would be near impossible to drive. They found a new technology that produced incredibly transparent sound, and one of the side effects of that technology was a very low nominal impedance. If everyone followed your ideas that speakers all have to be easy to drive or they shouldn't even bother producing them, then there would be no Martin Logans, no Magnepans, no Carvers, etc. Pushing the state of the art is not always easy.

There's nothing to say that the original design goals of the Scintilla could not have been met if its impedance was 2 ohms or more.

How do you know this? Are you an engineer with experience in the design of ribbon speakers? I'm guessing you have no real idea of the engineering quandaries the Apogee team had to work through to produce their speaker. I'm thinking if they could have produced as good a speaker with that technology and had a higher nominal impedance, they would have done so. Sometimes in engineering you have to make compromises. And if you aren't willing to compromise the sound, sometimes you compromise other things, like how easy the speaker is to drive. And remember, this was 1985, and ribbon technology was still pretty new.

I don't think this would be a proper business decision to make. Maybe that's why there are no longer made?

Well, obviously it was a proper business decision to make, because they were introduced to critical acclaim and Apogee sold tons of them. Apogee speakers are no longer made because they were bought out by a private equity group who then later shut them down because they weren't making enough profit. Considering that they were bought out over ten years after this speaker was made, I don't think you can blame the demise of the company on the nominal impedance of the Scintilla.

 

[jmstpierre]

Hi all,
Thanks to all that gave me some explanation about the ML. I am fairly new to the ML club, but can already see that they are fantastic speakers. Would love to hear the top of the range just to see how good a speaker can be.
I agree with the general consensus, that the point of building such "difficult" speakers results in great sound. I don t think I ll ever go back to conventional speakers after ML.
Regards
John

 

[roberto]

Hola John. I am hooked to ML sound since 86, when was the first time that I listened them at Chicago in the Summer Consumers Electronic Show. I think that for the money that you put in your system and speakers, ML is unmatched. It takes time and effort to make them to sing in your room. Little tweaks, here and there, are always good for the music. They are very revealing speakers, your cables and electronics should be picked with enough time, listening all the changes. Remember that our immediate memory only last less than 15 seconds, so, comparisons are always very confused. Take time with every change that you make in the system. The long term memery is the one that you should trust, and of course, in your ears. Also, quality watts are better than quantity watts. The best of ML is the size of the instrument(s) and vocal(s). The air between them and the stage is breath taking. The right harmonic texture and the transparency of the ML sound is what we all, love from ML. The smallest speaker to the big brother, have the magic. Through them, is so easy to listen the soul of the musician(s). You listen to the iinstrument(s) and you can call the name of the musician(s) very easy, because that is exactly what you get: the musician(s) playing for you, there... in your own place. Listen to live music, when ever you can... at small jazz clubs, or small concert halls. Listen how easy is to understand the hands of the piano player or a single guitar. The winds are just right! The strings are super coherence from bottom to top. Yes, I know, they are not perfect, but we can forgive the minor flaws, and enjoy the music. Try not to listen what is not good, and listen what it is good. Happy listening! (please forgive my spelling)

 

[gmartan]

Hi all,
Thanks to all that gave me some explanation about the ML. I am fairly new to the ML club, but can already see that they are fantastic speakers. Would love to hear the top of the range just to see how good a speaker can be.
I agree with the general consensus, that the point of building such "difficult" speakers results in great sound. I don t think I ll ever go back to conventional speakers after ML.
Regards
John

I went from an ML Aerius to a big JM lab. Six months later I bought my ML Summits. I'm hooked. I have driven them with a variety of amplifiers and none had any difficulty with the load. The amplifiers with output transformers did render them dull because there is no way to properly match that low impedence at high frequencies and also get a good match for the speakers nominal frequency. Those high frequencies were severely rolled off with the resulting loss of air and presence and soon the loss of my interest. The most engaging combination for me is a good, fairly powerful, direct coupled solid state amp driven by a good modern tube preamp.

 

[jmstpierre]

Hi roberto and gmartan,
you are right about instrument and vocals for ML.it s really like floating in the air.I still remember the firt day i heard the ML. like i said i d love to hear the clx but in that same token i d also like tpo hear magico just to see what the fuss is about or the focal utopia for that matter.
i use, to have the focal 1028be and they were fantastic, did not go too well with cyrus gear though, but great with moon amps (for me anyway...).now they have been put into the theatre room where i still enjoy them a lot. that s another thing i d like to experience, a full 7.2 ML theatre room.just imagine having 7 of those panel in a theatre room. wonder if it s realistic to have 7 of them in one room..
gmartan, you mentioned an amp with output transformer. i am sorry i don t get quite get you there. what are you refering to and what amp was it.
you r not the only one which mentions tube pre amp and solid amp, so m assuming it does really work. unfortunately for me, this system will be part of a multi purpose room, so i need a receiver with power amp or pro/power combo. never seen a tube processor yet.lol.
do hybrid amp really work and sound like tubes, or just a marketing tool. like vincent audio i beleive, solid state amp but got some tubes somewhere...gosh , m terrible at explaining things. see roberto, m not going to judge on your spelling as mine is probably even worst. m french so that s my excuse. talking about french, that s one thing i noticed, is that ML is very little known over there. now that m in australia, i realise that it s pretty common knowledge about ther ML sound, but not in france.Weird isn t it considering that there is only 20 million people here compared to 65 in france.saying that, the french are a bit speacial, they do not seem to be open to knew ideas and like what they know.good food though, i ll give them that..hahah
ok, off to work now
see you guys later
regards
froggy

 

[gmartan]

gmartan, you mentioned an amp with output transformer. i am sorry i don t get quite get you there. what are you refering to and what amp was it.
you r not the only one which mentions tube pre amp and solid amp, so m assuming it does really work. unfortunately for me, this system will be part of a multi purpose room, so i need a receiver with power amp or pro/power combo. never seen a tube processor yet.lol.
do hybrid amp really work and sound like tubes, or just a marketing tool. like vincent audio i beleive, solid state amp but got some tubes somewhere...

Almost all solid state amps today are "direct coupled" and do not require output transfomers whose taps need to be matched to the impedence of the speaker. Tube amplifiers typically require them. My experience is that amps with output transformers do work well with speakers whose impedence over their frequency range does not wander far from it's rated impedence. At the frequency where a speakers impedence varies a great deal from the amplifier impedence tap selected response drops off. That's why my ML Summits sounded dull before I went back to a direct coupled amp.

Insofar as a tube preamp is concerned, I simply can't listen to anything less than the best source material with a solid state preamp because the MLs are so revealing of the source. A neutral modern tube preamp simply takes the edge off all those pop and rock CDs that were poorly recorded. Some people who listen to music and watch videos on the same system (I don't) will use a tube preamp anyway and feed their front L&R channels from their A/V processor through it when listening.

 

[Spike]

this system will be part of a multi purpose room, so i need a receiver with power amp or pro/power combo.

I am using a tube linestage with home-theater bypass to feed my processor's L/R output to the amp, "bypassing" the linestage.

never seen a tube processor yet.

How about this 6-channel tubed pre-amp designed for audiophile-quality home-theater. Not exactly a surround processor, but it's designed to leverage the internal processor of the DVD/BluRay source.
Link to DecWare Zen Ultra