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February 10, 2011 - 8:13am
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can you use a tube amp to power a subwoofer
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If powered, no problem. If not would that not depend on the power the tubed amp puts out?
It depends on a number of factors, including bass response of the tube amp you select as some tube amps can sound a little wimpy or flabby in the lower and mid bass. Tube amps might actually be better served as midrange/treble driver and drive the sub with a high power/low cost solid state amp. The efficiency of the subwoofer determines the power requirement for the amp so you can get away with a relatively low powered tube or solid amp if your subwoofer is sufficiently efficient, as it were. But if the subwoofer is relatively inefficient, power and cost can dramatically increase. One big advantage to high-efficiency speaker systems is that low power/low cost tube amps can be used to drive the entire system, bass and midrange/treble. Finally, tube amps tend to require a little care and feeding so if you want to just plug and play a solid state amp for the subwoofer might be just the ticket.
Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica
Back in 1959 Magnavox had a rig that was 6v6 SE on the top (to a horn speaker) and 6v6 Push Pull (to 15 inch) for the base (Magnavox AMP-182).