Arkless Electronics
Trade: Amp design and repairs.
The noise could be the decider though, looking at specs (which I don’t claim to understand) it seemed that only amps with S/N ratios well above 100 were quiet enough for the speakers....
With 105dB/W efficiency it is a very tall order for any amp to be completely silent even if you are only say a foot away from the speaker and in a completely silent room...
It has nothing to do with the class of the amp. Most (to all intents and purposes all in fact) hiss comes from the amps input stage/s.
S/N ratio's have to be compared carefully.. you need to be "comparing apples with apples"! Is it stated as relative to the amps full power or relative to a specified power output?
With a 200W amp 100dB S/N relative to full power is a lot noisier than a 10W amp being 100dB S/N relative to full power! Are figures in fact relative to power or to voltage? Over what measurement bandwidth?