09-Oct-2017, 09:49
And I have a 130 Pro connected to a pair of Focal Sopra 2s. In general it works fine, at least for me. It may not work for others.
It's not a simple issue of amp size. You also have to consider speaker sensitivity, room size, listening distance and choice of music plus your preferred listening level. The difference in rated sensitivity between the Sopra 2 (91 dB) and 1028Be that stef74500 has (91.5 dB) is only half a dB which is inconsequential. I sit around 2.5 metres from the Sopras in an L-shaped room around 30 sq metres in size and most of my listening is small group jazz and other small group music and I listen at what a lot of people would regard as low to medium loudness levels. I don't listen at loud levels. I rarely have any issues and mostly when I do it's with something like the occasional large scale musical work like symphonic music and even then it's recording sensitive. There's no standard for mastering music recordings like there is for movie soundtracks and some music discs seem to be mastered at much lower levels than other discs. I do most of my listening with the volume set between -15 dB and -20 dB so I have plenty of head room to play with but there are some discs where I need to increase the volume to something like -5 dB. I've never had to go to 0dB or higher. I don't think my system sounds as good with symphonic music as it does with the jazz I normally listen to but part of that is going to be due to the size of my room as much as it is to any lack of power from the 130 Pro.
Prior to the Sopras I was running my 130 Pro with a pair of Dynaudio Contour 1.3 SEs with a sensitivity rating of 84-85 dB and felt the 130 Pro worked fine with them. The Dyns were 6 dB less sensitive than the Sopras and that is a significant difference.
I can understand some people feeling that they would need more power with the Sopra 2s than the 130 Pro can provide, especially if they like lots of large scale symphonic music or loud rock and/or if they have a large room and listen at greater distances than I do. My point is that I have difficulties with black and white absolute statements that such and such a speaker needs a bigger amp than a 130 or a 220 or any other specific amp you care to name. In general I have found that a lot of speakers work better if you can couple them with larger amps but that doesn't mean that they don't work, or work only badly, with a smaller amp. A speaker can often work well with a smaller amp, and work better with a larger amp, and you're faced with the problem of whether or not you think that the improvement you get with the larger amp justifies the extra cost of the larger amp and once you start going down that rabbit hole you're also faced with the question of how much larger an amp you should go for. If you're interested in the Blades I'd look for a demo with a 130 Pro if I could get one, and see if you can arrange it in a room around the same size as your own room with your choice of music. Depending on your room size and taste in music and listening levels you may be pleasantly surprised or you may decide that it's a combination which simply does not work but I find it hard to make decisions on what will or won't work simply on the basis of a given amp's power rating. I've been surprised more than a few works over which speaker and amp combinations work and which don't.
When it comes to whether a particular speaker/amp combination will work or not, I've come to believe that the only way to find out is to "suck it and see" for yourself.
It's not a simple issue of amp size. You also have to consider speaker sensitivity, room size, listening distance and choice of music plus your preferred listening level. The difference in rated sensitivity between the Sopra 2 (91 dB) and 1028Be that stef74500 has (91.5 dB) is only half a dB which is inconsequential. I sit around 2.5 metres from the Sopras in an L-shaped room around 30 sq metres in size and most of my listening is small group jazz and other small group music and I listen at what a lot of people would regard as low to medium loudness levels. I don't listen at loud levels. I rarely have any issues and mostly when I do it's with something like the occasional large scale musical work like symphonic music and even then it's recording sensitive. There's no standard for mastering music recordings like there is for movie soundtracks and some music discs seem to be mastered at much lower levels than other discs. I do most of my listening with the volume set between -15 dB and -20 dB so I have plenty of head room to play with but there are some discs where I need to increase the volume to something like -5 dB. I've never had to go to 0dB or higher. I don't think my system sounds as good with symphonic music as it does with the jazz I normally listen to but part of that is going to be due to the size of my room as much as it is to any lack of power from the 130 Pro.
Prior to the Sopras I was running my 130 Pro with a pair of Dynaudio Contour 1.3 SEs with a sensitivity rating of 84-85 dB and felt the 130 Pro worked fine with them. The Dyns were 6 dB less sensitive than the Sopras and that is a significant difference.
I can understand some people feeling that they would need more power with the Sopra 2s than the 130 Pro can provide, especially if they like lots of large scale symphonic music or loud rock and/or if they have a large room and listen at greater distances than I do. My point is that I have difficulties with black and white absolute statements that such and such a speaker needs a bigger amp than a 130 or a 220 or any other specific amp you care to name. In general I have found that a lot of speakers work better if you can couple them with larger amps but that doesn't mean that they don't work, or work only badly, with a smaller amp. A speaker can often work well with a smaller amp, and work better with a larger amp, and you're faced with the problem of whether or not you think that the improvement you get with the larger amp justifies the extra cost of the larger amp and once you start going down that rabbit hole you're also faced with the question of how much larger an amp you should go for. If you're interested in the Blades I'd look for a demo with a 130 Pro if I could get one, and see if you can arrange it in a room around the same size as your own room with your choice of music. Depending on your room size and taste in music and listening levels you may be pleasantly surprised or you may decide that it's a combination which simply does not work but I find it hard to make decisions on what will or won't work simply on the basis of a given amp's power rating. I've been surprised more than a few works over which speaker and amp combinations work and which don't.
When it comes to whether a particular speaker/amp combination will work or not, I've come to believe that the only way to find out is to "suck it and see" for yourself.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.
Brisbane, Qld, Australia
