Ok, sounds good. I'm guessing your speakers are pretty robust, so it would take a lot of volume to blow a driver. Hell, I've had my low-end JBLs at full blast, and no blown drivers.
But, would it be so bad if you do blow a driver to have a Mexican-made driver? I mean it wouldn't be the end of the world, and you wouldn't have to get rid of the speakers...
I have always suspected that it was not an issue of the speakers handling the amplifier, but the amplifier handling the speakers.
Case-in-point….
A while ago, I had a Sony receiver and it was rated for 100 watts @ 8 ohms. To this day, I believe that this amplifier had a very dirty, distorted output and that it had an extremely poor capacity to properly supply the speakers with the energy they required. It was very hard on speakers and you could actually hear the audio begin to “fall apart” when you increased the volume level.
Distortion and clipping will kill an inexpensive speaker as quickly as an expensive counterpart.
A feature I noticed about my Bryston amplifiers, albeit not right away, was the tremendous SPLs that filled the room and I did not even notice it. The reason for this, was that the audio signal to the speakers was very clean and the amplifiers had ample energy reserves required by the speakers. I still remember thinking that this gear could hurt you if you were not careful. Not taking anything away from the JBL 1400’s, but they are built like tanks from the ground up - I am still impressed with the 4 inch coil on the LF and for me, compression driven horns are my nirvana.
I believe the way to go is to get the highest powered, quality amplifier that you can find. This is not to shake the walls down, but to enjoy “all” of the music at very low SPLs. My 28B’s are rated for a little over 1.2 Kilo-Watts (my vanity peeks through once again as I like writing the power output this way) and combined with the 1400’s, they give me everything I want in my music. I am currently listening to Abney Park’s acoustic version of “Breathe” - it is beautiful and all of the detail is there from a pair of behemoths.
As for North American companies moving production to Chinese/Mexican suppliers, it truly saddens me. Not only to see what were once quality products been transformed into a “price-per-build” mentality, but what of our youth? Home ownership for the next generation may be very difficult for them to achieve with low paying jobs. Our standard of living is ultimately going to decline in North America.
The cure for the current recession was never found, they only treated the symptoms by throwing cash at it. Look at what is happening in Europe at this time and the American debt is now 90% of their GDP. We are no better up here, Canadians are also piling on the debt with debt-to-income levels rising to 145 per cent and an “average” household debt of $96,000.00.
Is that a storm you see on the horizon? Better believe it is. I am rambling - time to enjoy my music.
Be well...
