Which amplifier for old set of speakers?

p

Hey all,

I had an old pair of Tannoy MX2 Speakers lying around un-used and want to buy an amp for them to get some decent sound in my bedroom. Right now i've just a set of PC speakers which are ok, but not great. i've been researching online for awhile, and after plenty of research feel more confused than ever about what I should buy. Maybe you guys can help me out a bit?

Here's the speaker specs:
Peak Power Handling: 120 watt
Nominal Power: 120 watt
Frequency Response: 48 Hz - 20 kHz
Impedance: 8 ohm
Sensitivity: 88 dB
Subwoofer Power: 80 watt
http://www.ebay.ie/ctg/Tannoy-Mercury-MX2-M-Main-Stereo-Speakers-/78035696#%7B%22Page%22%3A%22%2Fctg%2FTannoy-Mercury-MX2-M-Main-Stereo-Speakers-%2F78035696%3F_aset%3D2%26_pcatid%3D568%26_rptype%3D4295%26_tab%3D1%23prddesc%22%7D

I was hoping to get a small amp, rather than a rack one to take up less space. It will mainly be connected to a computer or phone, and maybe via an Airport Express for Airplay, listening to music mainly, and sometimes films.

I've only been finding things like this, which appear to be much to low powered for my speakers.

Got any pointers or recommendations for me?

TroutMask

Something generic would be fine: NAD, Yamaha or Denon - esque amps would work fine. Don't spend too much and a low power (25 WPC) would do fine with a higher power amp (40 - 80 WPC) if you want to go nuts and crank it.

p

Hey - thanks so much for the reply.

WPC = Watts Per Channel, right?

Everything I read was saying that I should get about 25% more than the speakers spec. But that says 100W? Doesn't that mean I need a more powerful, or did I miss read & calculate that?

If I can follow your recommendation, then there's many more options available to me, which is really great

TroutMask

Yes, Watts per Channel. My recommendation is based on the Tannoy MX series manual - see page 8 here :

http://www.hnny.nl/archief_tannoy/mercury_MX_series/manual_eng.pdf

The power ratings for your speakers are:
120 Watts peak (disregard this number - it is not used to calculate the amplifier power rating)*

and, recommended 10 Watts RMS - 80 Watts RMS (RMS stands for 'Root Mean Square', and is basically a fancy way of saying 'average power'.

Page 3 of that manual has an explanation of amplifier matching and the consequences of underpowering etc.

So, if you're a rocker - get an 80 Watts RMS per-channel amp and that will operate them safely and with plenty of headroom.

If you just want a more background type of sound - without excessive volume - then you can go down as low as 10 Watts RMS with those speakers. I'm currently using a NAD 25 Watt RMS per channel with a pair of Mission bookshelf speakers and they're plenty loud. Personally speaking, I wouldn't go below 25-35 WPC RMS unless you're using, say, a T-Amp. I wouldn't recommend a T-Amp for those Tannoys BTW (T-Amps prefer sensitive speakers - 90dB-ish? Those Tannoys are a little too rugged as they come in at 88dB). I only brought that up because, valve amps excepted, T-Amps are the only viable low-powered audiophile HiFi amp.

So, back to the original recommendation


*basically this figure is the maximum safe peak power that can be safely delivered to the speaker. Take this figure with a grain of salt because chances are, if you run the speaker at its limits, it will probably blow at some stage.

p

Hey - thanks so much for the detailed explanation - really appreciate it!

No I can go buy some stuff much more confidence I won't have to return it.

Thanks again!

TroutMask

You're welcome