Selecting an amplifier to match your speaker

[jarodreddig]

Paul everyday I watch your video and it’s always a great few minutes of my day.

[whitebeard]

There may not be many amps with tube inputs and solid state outputs but you can opt for a valve preamp followed by a solid state amplifier. I'm currently looking at this option and reading reviews on some of the Schiit Audio amplifiers.

[oliverbeard]

It's very impressive that the chap who posed the question is building his own drive units.Best of luck to him.It's a fun road of learning and discovery.I'd be curious to see it myself.

[FungedeBagre]

The lower the impedance the lower the dampening factor. I have learned something new today. Thank you Paul.

[PolymateD]

Thank you very much for answering my question Paul. Really appreciate you taking the time. For anyone watching who wants to see more about my project you can see versions in action on my youtube page or on the diyaudio forum. For clarity, the cone, Former, Surround, Spider, and Basket are 3D printed components. Other components are a steel tube, screws, copper wire, and magnets. I have attempted to make these parts too but it just cannot get into a competitive place. What it does have in a modular magnet motor which is not fixed with glue, so you you can alter it to change power output and Xmax. The drivetrain is also interchangable so the driver has as many 3D printed components as possible to give me as much flexibility, and customisation, and performance that is able to compete




Thanks again!

[SJMessinwithBoats]

That is really awesome to 3D print a driver. Paul pulls off some big stunts too.

[johnsweda]

Paul! Is there such a thing as a joined output stage tube and transistor working in unison like the transistor is fed through the valve on the output of a power amplifier or the other way around. Talking Power amplitude not preamp.
You have to make sure the spider flexes in its entire length not at a pivot point, might be worth making thicker at the voice coil and thinning it out towards the ends.
This should help with voicing on the driver vocal coil

[musicman]

I have several pair of those Monoprice interconnects that are in the picture, good and cheap cables.

[andershammer]

I use a vacuum tube preamp that has a solid state power supply. Tube power supplies sound too soft to me. My amps have a solid state input and drivers with tube outputs. Tubes tend to sound nicer when they clip and my amp requires tube outputs as there are not many output transistors that can handle 5 thousand volts.

[stevefick]

I think the 3D printer driver is pretty cool! We've been tossing around the idea of getting one in our shop to print off obsolete parts that have been broken. 3D printers are quite good, now

[Tyler-npud]

I have 2 Acoustic 3311. 125 max watts, 8 ohms, 92 db
What amp specs do I need? Thank you

[trog]

I was lucky to already own a pair of Adcom 555's so when I got a pair of ADS L810's and people told me that they really needed high-current gas to power them, I was in like Flynn. heh

[MrTheNark]

I've heard many times about damping factor, and I understand the technical definition, but I don't understand why this definition is chosen. Maybe someone knows?
The common definition of damping factor is:

DF = Znom_speaker / Zout_amplifier

What I don't understand (let's ignore crossovers for simplicity): the voice coil of a speaker has an _inductance_ and some _resistance_ in the order of lets say 3 Ohm. But, this resistance sits electrically seen _in_ _series_ with the speaker. This is equivalent to putting a resistor of 3 Ohm in the speaker wire of an _ideal_ speaker that only has voice coil inductance. This again is equivalent to having an amplifier with _3 Ohm output impedance_, which is much larger than the typical output impedance of an amplifier (typically ~0.1 Ohm).

Questions:
- Isn't the output impedance of the amplifier (Zout_amplifier) of let's say ~0.1 Ohm for a solid state amp, completely negligible compared to the ~3 Ohm voice coil resistance, rendering the commonly used definition of damping factor sort of useless?
- Shouldn't a more usable definition of damping factor be the ratio beween voice coil inductance at (for example) 1 kHz divided by voice coil resistance? This really determines how well the cone is damped, right?

[SJMessinwithBoats]

Just an afterthought.... That driver should match real good with
"3D Printed Amplifier." Just another wild swing from The Junky.

[mornecoetzee]

Hi Paul PS Audio's Powerplant Globalnet has been down for more than a year now. To date I havn't been able to use all its online features since new. A third of the warranty has since lapsed and its still in it's box. The site states it's comming summer 2019. When will the new site be up and running? Thank you. PS I am well aware of the 'offline' LAN features, I am looking for the 'online' features.

[soring]

Unless I am mistaken 3D printing is done with plastics. Wouldn’t then the cone have too much mass and the basket not enough rigidity? And how do you make a spider which has to be very flexible out of plastics?

[earthoid]

My new amp seems to be too powerful for my speakers because I can’t turn the volume knob much above 9 o’clock without risking ear damage. This also makes lower volume settings hard to control with the remote because it moves too fast. I guess I should have asked Paul for advice first.

[Vazhaspa]

Either choose "a warm and juicy amplifier" or "a lean amplifier" to be "synergic" with your speakers is like saying nothing!! … Paul is now talking like a politician!

[janinapalmer]

How do you print the magnet ? When it comes to high end drivers you can't beat those produced by the right manufacturers ! They've had the research and experience...
The early speakers used to be 15 ohms .. this was to raise the damping factor... you can have higher impedance drivers because the secondary winding is matched perfectly.. the lower the DC resistance of this winding the higher the damping factor...

[كورسسسكوللشبكات]

I have an Bose amplifier: 2x50w @4 ohms, 2x25w @8 ohms

And Bose speakers: up to 80w, 4 ohms

What is the maximum number of speakers that amplifier can handle?