Tony L
Administrator
I don't think being able to go down to 1-ohm whilst maintaining full drive voltage is necessary unless driving Apogee Scintillas. Any amp that gets close to doubling their 8-ohm power into 4-ohms is good enough for most nominal 8-ohm loudspeakers, which shouldn't dip much below 5-ohms at minima. They can get into trouble with 4-ohm designs though, which is favoured by American designers and hence the need for arc-welding amperage.
The point I'm trying to make is unless they do double perfectly (and IME most can't even double from 8 to 4 Ohms), then there is measurable imperfection and we are firmly back into the world of subjectivism, i.e. we have found and measured a key reason why amplifiers may sound different in real-world practical scenarios. The hard-line "objectivist" stance portrayed on much of the internet is to my mind utter bollocks as it doesn't even pass scrutiny on it's own terms! It needs to be stated firmly that I'm not siding with the mystical sellers of foo on this argument either, just pointing out that for those of us in the centre ground both extremes look more than somewhat idiotic. Rational and logical subjectivism is the center-ground, the extremes are merely two slightly different types of religion.
An amp suitable for the Scintilla will be ideal with the others, but a gratuitous waste of resources.
Here speaks a man who's obviously never heard a high-power class B solid state amp driving high-efficiency vintage horns! The phrase 'like someone angle-grinding a bin-lid' comes to mind...