SDA 2B and 45wpc amp

danger boy

I have a Yamaha CA 610-II as part of my computer rig.. driving some Speakerlab bookshelf speakers... they are brite... but ok for a computer rig.

well tonight I decided to take the Yamaha old school 45wpc integrated amp.. and hook it up to my SDA 2B's. At low to mid level volumes it sounds pretty good. Once I approach 11 or straight up 12 o'clock i begin to hear distortion.

at 1 o"clock and above the distortion is pretty evident. It's loud as hell, but the poor mid bass drivers are pushing in and out pretty far, and I can hear distortion. I turned it down of course.

I"m listening to it right now at 10 o'clock on the volume dial, and it sounds pretty good. I guess 45watts isn't quite enough for the louder volumes without reaching distortion. The amp is rated to handle 4ohm loads, but 45 watts ain't much really. Not enough headroom that's for sure.

I'll be honest, this is really the first time i've heard true distortion because an amp didn't have enough power behind it. I have read from several people in here of course about distortion, but I've never really experienced it till tonight.

I also hooked up my Pioneer TX-9500II tuner. OMG bass is unreal. First time i've ever heard bass like that from FM.

nms

Hope your tweeters are OK.

TroyD

Yeah, that's not good for the tweeters.

An honest 45wpc should be fine for most applications but 1 o'clock on the dial, that's pretty excessive.

BDT

danger boy

agreed.. i would know if I fried a tweeter. i've heard bad tweeters before. I know when to turn it down.. and it's never going that loud again with this amp.

McLoki

When I first purchased my SDA1b's in the late 80's, I ran them with a yamaha C-85 amplifier. (thing was a beast) I always thought it sounded great.

I know alot of people don't think much of yamaha and SDA - but the vintage yamaha always sounded pretty good with them to me. I was thinking of trying carver for my next amp with them. That is supposed to be a good combo as well.

Michael

zingo

I've always liked a lot of Yamaha's stuff. They are not hifi, but great for the price. I hope you like the SDA/Carver combo. It makes my ears happy.

danger boy

the Yamaha amp doesn't have the dynamics of my Pioneer elite amp.. but it doesn't sound half bad. If I had not known about better sound with a different amp. at low to mid volumes the Yamaha amp sounds pretty good. I was listening to it all last night.

Raising the volume even helps a bit to increase the good sound. But as i mentioned earlier.. this amp it to tiny to drive SDA's for the long haul. I would think a minimum of 80, 90 or 100 watts for the SDA 2B's would be better. The two amps I have @ 8ohms, 120, 150 watts respectively drive the 2B's just right.