Help in understanding dampening factor?

[goraman]

My amp has a dampening factor of 5.
My speakers are 8 ohm. They messure 7.5 ohm Speaker cables measure .001 ohms same as touching the leads together. 7 AWG. or 3.67mm conductors 2 meters per cable.
The specs for my amp says a 5 ohm speaker load is optimal.
Dose the extra resistance from the speakers lower the dampening factor? Bass seems well controlled.
Dose it affect the amplifiers output?

https://www.manley.com/legacy/mst/

[Macca]

All I know about damping factor is that above 20 it doesn't really matter. 5 is really low!

[goraman]

All I know about damping factor is that above 20 it doesn't really matter. 5 is really low!

I know a lot of tube amps have very low Damping factors.
My big S.S. amp had a factor of 50.

[dave2010]

I know a lot of tube amps have very low Damping factors.
My big S.S. amp had a factor of 50.See this article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damping_factor

From the article, SS amps probably have a lot of negative feedback to control distortion. As a consequence they may have very high damping factors well over 100. Tube amps may have less negative feedback, and may have lower damping factors.

The damping factor is really only significant around the resonant frequency of the loudspeaker - assuming a normal voice coil driven unit. Where it might make a difference is on low notes which cut off rapidly. Acoustic instruments would normally have a reverberant decay anyway, though this would be exaggerated if the loudspeaker resonance was excited and not dampted enough. Artificial "electronic" sounds might cut off faster - and if you wanted that effect you'd want to choose a speaker with significant damping.

I'm not sure if damping factor has significance for mid range or high range transducers (tweeters) - probably not - the mechanical design would probably damp those sufficiently.

If you are getting well controlled bass anyway, then why not stop worrying about it? If you start to notice an overhang on some notes, then would be time to think more about this.

[Macca]

According to this article it doesn't make a blind bit of difference how low the damping factor is https://www.audioholics.com/audio-amplifier/damping-factor-effects-on-system-response

[DSJR]

Not sure if there are various ways of measuring it, and no, I haven't looked it up to understand more. My geriatric but still worthy old Crown D series amps have very high damping factor (500+ up to the upper mids at least) and don't sound so 'dry' the music is lost in the tautness - imo obviously. HiFi World magazine gives painfully low damping figures for some amps yet states the values are good, so maybe I'm understanding it totally wrongly... I remember being taken apart by the Harbeth designer some years back, telling me that damping factor made no difference and chucking a Doug Self article at me, yet a short while later, Stereophile did some research and found totally the opposite, a view now shared by same designer (I wasn't qualified enough to make a comment obviously).

A low damping factor into 8 ohm two way speakers with a passive crossover will give audible variations in the response as shown in Stereophile reviews. Best if you look at Stereophile amp reviews done in recent years. Some responses are graphic equaliser levels but many owners love just this aspect and possibly the 'looser' vibe this may impart (I'm thinking one valve amp maker in particular). Most solid state amps of today seem pretty fine though... Only if you want to use valve gear would I take just a little caution myself.