Salk Supercharged SongSurround Amplification

Loudspeakers
1

This is also posted on the Salk forum at AC.

I have a pair of the Salk Supercharged SongSurrounds (8 ohm 84dB). In one setup they sound good driven by a Schiit Ragnarok 2 (A/B 60 wpc). I plugged them into the HT setup NAD T758 (D 110 wpc) as L/R fronts where they seemed to really come alive. In neither case was I driving them hard (call it average 60 ish dB at 1 meter) where I would suspect the Raggy was anywhere close to running out of steam. The HT room set up is arguably worse than the Schiit setup so I think acoustics has little to do with the difference.

Does it make any sense that the Songs are just better matched to either or both the power and amplifier class differences?

I ask because I’m considering a few of options for a desktop amp that I want to be powerful enough to drive the Songs. Two are about 50 wpc. One is class D (Sprout) the other A/B (Parasound ZampV.3). A third option is a Schiit Vidar (A/B 100 wpc). They also bracket the price point I’m looking at.

Any thoughts are appreciated. Thank you.

2

Difficult to determine how an amp performs in an integrated as I’m guessing all the bits around it make more of a difference.

Were you using the DAC in the Ragnarok? What was the source for both tests?

Keeping as many things the same as possible gets you closer to an evaluation of the thing you’re trying to test. I’d start by bringing the Ragnarok (i assume easier then moving the AVR) into the same room where you’re testing. Rooms make a dramatic difference in speaker performance.

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The Ragnarok was fed by a Bluesound Vault2i through a Bifrost, the NAD with the onboard Bluesound and DAC. Moving the Ragnarok is easy. Maybe family room is livelier.