In my over 50 years of personal audio, I think that I can explain part of the speaker/amp compatibility. This opinion is everything but comprehensive.
Bad matches in amp/speakers manifest themselves very often in the bass. Please consider, these thoughts have been observed on speaker systems with the amplifiers connected directly to the voice coil without crossovers. Some combinations sound flabby and others seem to have the life and 3 dimensionality constricted out of them. In my own research, I find that there seems to be a necessary balance between the BL of the woofer and the damping factor of the amp. If the woofer has high BL, lower damping factor seems to be beneficial (until things get flabby again). The opposite can also be true: woofers with "low BL" seem to work better with high damping factor. Just maybe part of the magic is based on total Q of the entire woofer system.
This makes sense to me because every musical instrument works the same way - we promote resonance through high total Q or inhibit resonance with low Q.
Passive speaker level crossovers affect the BL/Q of the woofer and probably demand a respective consideration in amplifier damping factor. |
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