Should amps be swapped on active systems?

[Alley_Cat]

@ChrisSU

I would imagine (from a layman’s point of view) that although a tweeter is much smaller than a woofer, its mass changes direction thousands of times per second, much more rapidly than the larger unit, and this might place greater demands on the amp.

That’s an interesting thought I’d not considered - a better response to shorter and shorter transients rather than ‘power’ per se.

[Innocent_Bystander]

@Alley_Cat

could a mid/bass driver be damaged by inability to cope with high frequency excursions of the driver -

No.

[Innocent_Bystander]

@ChrisSU

its mass changes direction thousands of times per second, much more rapidly than the larger unit, and this might place greater demands on the amp.

No it doesn’t place more demand on the amp than trying to control a much heavier cone. And quite apart from the sheer power requirement I mentioned in a previous post, which was to do with moving the greater amount of air necessary for the same sound level as higher frequencies, there is also control of the cone, which has much higher inertia resisting start and stop of it moving.

[Alley_Cat]

@Innocent_Bystander

@Alley_Cat

could a mid/bass driver be damaged by inability to cope with high frequency excursions of the driver -

No.

[Xanthe]

No idea never tried it out!

[suzywong]

Curiously enough, I did try the two configurations, several years ago, pairing a Meridian 103D (40 Wpc IIRC) and a NAP250 (80? Wpc).

I preferred it when the “more powerful” (better?) 250 was on the tweeters.

[Innocent_Bystander]

Not the same character of amp, so tge power is probably a red herring…

[suzywong]

True, but I found it interesting that at system level the clearly “better” amp (250) would be doing the least amount of work. In any event, it wasn’t too long before I found another 250.

Now if someone would like to donate me a 140, I’d be delighted to repeat the experiment.

IIRC the old Meridian M2 had 70W on the mid/bass and 35W on the tweeter.