schneiderhan
pfm Member
I agree, I've played my P3ESRs with Sony and Marantz amps, plus Leak and Radford valve amps, Quad 306, all sounded great. Currently using with a restored Quad 303, lovely sound.
Amp for P3ESR XD
- Thread starter M@ver1ck
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Nagraboy
Ausculta fili
Yes, my friend uses a restored 303 with his pair, as did I with my M30.1 (plus a 34) and it works great.
ArtK
Lovin’ life!
It would depend on the budget, I suppose. I used a Rega Brio-R for years with P3’s and enjoyed it. A little up from that is the Croft Phono Integrated which does very nicely with P3’s. I’m now running a set of Spendor Classic 3/1’s and using the Croft. I have my P3’s put away...great speakers. Yesterday we had a big power surge (which I have never experienced in my 37 years living here) which took out my Croft and my Rega Neo. I think it’s just the fuses for the Croft. I ordered some so we’ll see. The Neo appears to have gone to HiFi heaven. Meanwhile I unboxed my Rega IO which I bought to put together a low cost second system. Cracking little amp. 75% of the Croft performance for 30% of the price. Very impressed. Not sure it would be enough power for the P3’s but I might just try it to find out.
ampedup
Lost in audio
I've been thinking about pairing the Rega Io with small inefficient bookshelf speakers......let us know how it pans out, compared to the Croft driving the P3s.
ArtK
Lovin’ life!
All hooked up and ready for some listening.
Salamander
pfm Member
You could add Prima Luna to this list
Tigerjones
Bagpuss
As mentioned down stream they really aren’t a fussy speaker and most decent amps will be more than able.
narabdela
who?
It's interesting to read the dichotomy in opinion though. I've often read that the Quad 303 is an ideal match, a view supported by some posts here, whereas we also have the "they do like it up 'em" camp.
Nagraboy
Ausculta fili
“They like it up ‘em” doesn’t make any technical sense though. Unless you’re using the extra Watts of the bigger amp to play louder than the lower powered amp can, the extra power isn’t going “up ‘em”.
Having a more powerful amp with more Wattage on tap doesn’t mean any extra power delivered to the speaker if played at the same volume as a lower powered amp. So the speaker doesn’t get any more power up ‘em.
Also, the speaker draws current, it doesn’t get pushed at the speaker more strongly by a more powerful amp - there’s often a misconception that it’s the other way round.
I think it’s all just a psychological trap people fall into because they don’t know how it works and there’re plenty of other people on forums ready to back up the superstition for them.
Dave H.
Revolutionary relativist
In fairness, in the case of Harbeth at least, AS himself is guilty here, IIRC suggesting that around 70W is a good idea for amps to drive Harbeths (so at least a fair degree of ‘it’ up them), and publicising a video showing his big speakers drawing hundreds of W at times during music playback.
I’m not saying this is right or wrong (I don’t have relevant expertise), but it’s hard to accuse him of not knowing how speakers work, and it’s easy to see why people would believe him when he makes these sorts of claims.
Tony L
Administrator
The small speaker plus high power thing tends to be more about dealing with the horrible reactive low-impedance loads presented by some inefficient modern ported speakers, and in this scenario something like a 303 will need a fainting couch, as would pretty much any valve amp. The Harbeth P3 is not as amp friendly as an LS3/5A, but neither is it hard work, so a 303 should be perfectly happy.
To my mind it is never about raw power with these tiny mini-monitors, you’d only need about 10 Watts to slam the voice coil as far back into the magnet as it will go, it’s just some of the ported ones really need low-impedance grip as the load is so extreme. The original AE1s being a prime example, hopeless on something like a Naim 110 or 140, really quite astonishing on a 100 Watt Krell. To counter that I am really happy with a Leak Stereo 20 into LS3/5As or JR149s. These are even less sensitive on paper, but such a gentle load a nice 10 Watt valve amp is all one needs.
Nagraboy
Ausculta fili
AS’s advice doesn’t contradict what I said though. He’s suggesting using 70 Watts to deliver the maximum SPL in a normal room. If we tried to do that with 15 Watts we wouldn’t achieve those max levels. My point was that more power doesn’t give anything extra if the lower powered amp is able to deliver sufficient power for the desired volume levels including peaks without clipping. Perhaps people misunderstand his advice? In any case, the 70 Watts dint go ‘up ‘em’ unless you’re playing the amp at it’s full output.
Nagraboy
Ausculta fili
I agree Tony, my 15W Leben was perfectly fine with my P3ESR at the lowish volumes I tend to listen at. When I took the pairing to Scalford for the Wam show, I had to turn it up due to background noise and the large number of people in the room, which did lead to audible compression - which still sounded rather nice on Tony Williams Lifetime!
Tigerjones
Bagpuss
Leben and the Harbeths are a sweet sounding pair.
For what it’s worth I never found the P3s to need a lot of power. The Mini Max had 8watts.
For what it’s worth I never found the P3s to need a lot of power. The Mini Max had 8watts.
Chris81
pfm Member
Harbeth P3ESR impedance minimum (measured by AUDIO-Magazine): 5.7Ohm around 150Hz.
Stereophile measured it too: https://www.stereophile.com/content/harbeth-p3esr-loudspeaker-measurements
Stereophile measured it too: https://www.stereophile.com/content/harbeth-p3esr-loudspeaker-measurements
