Quote Originally Posted by CliveG View Post
I suppose its not surprising they match so well, since these amps were produced in the mid sixties and were expensive for the time, so were mainly used by professionals or serious audiophiles, with whom 15" Monitor Reds were very popular.
But what I find amazing is how the STA15 has more than enough power for these speakers, even taking into account Tom's point above about the real power output of these amps. I am having to use -20dB attenuators on the amp's inputs to get the pre-amp volume control to work over a sensible range.
That's not a power question that's input sensitivity .. Will built some attenuation into the inputs of mine so that it could be used with a normal high-gain preamp. Doesn't affect the power rating ... you don't lose any power by running attenuators, you just have more control over the input signal and the resulting output volume. A higher gain input signal just means you reach maximum output (and distortion) faster.