£50 budget for an amp for Wharfdale Diamond 9.0

[SammyNib]

I just managed to pick up some Wharfdale Diamond 9.0 quite cheap and was looking for an amp to power them. This is what I've found so far:
http/www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KBIV1WW/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=Q0GMQTP58J97&coliid=IRQ73S2I1MF7U

Just wandering if it was any good, or if I could get better for the price.

Thanks for any help,
Sam.

 

[pauls3743]

Unfortunately I'm going to say no, even though I've never used such a small amp. You'd be doing your speakers a disservice by hooking them up to such a rough and ready amplifier.

For a pair of Wharfdale Diamonds you really need to be looking at a different price range. They're quality speakers and deserve a quality amp. Brand new you're looking at a bare minimum of £200, 2nd hand (ebay) you'd be looking about half that. I'd suggest looking at the likes of Rotel, Naim, Yamaha, Onkyo, maybe even Sony if you can accept something of slightly lower quality.

I found out the hard way if you buy cheap you get cheap. My personal experience is that when you hook up a quality speaker to a better amplifier it sounds better because that amplifier has more control over the signal it sends to the speaker. I've also had the bad experience of hooking up a bad/cheap/weak amplifier to a good speaker and it sounds awful. For the record, I'm currently running a pair of B&W DM600 S3s with an Onkyo TX-NR828 and it sounds awesome. There are true audiophiles out there who would look down on me for such a setup but I'm not a true audiophile.

These are only my suggestions. What you do is up to you.

 

[ien2222]

I'll disagree with pauls somewhat. It really depends on what you are planning on using this setup for.

For average usage it'll put out ~10-20 watts while staying under .1% THD, meaning that it's get the Wharfedales to play in the mid to higher 90dB's at one meter without any noticeable distortion. Moderate volume won't be a problem for these, reference level will though.

So, if you plan on using these for say...computer speakers, or even for small to moderate room size where you're listening distance isn't over 10-12 feet (3-4 meters) and don't plan on playing them super loud you'll be fine with this amp. Switching to a better amp really won't get you better audio quality per se, it'll simply give you a higher limit on how loud you can play them.

As for your question is it good? Yes, with the conditions above, SMSL seems to put out good amps, Topping amps would be another brand to look at if you want something else to compare with.

 

[SammyNib]

I'll disagree with pauls somewhat. It really depends on what you are planning on using this setup for.

For average usage it'll put out ~10-20 watts while staying under .1% THD, meaning that it's get the Wharfedales to play in the mid to higher 90dB's at one meter without any noticeable distortion. Moderate volume won't be a problem for these, reference level will though.

So, if you plan on using these for say...computer speakers, or even for small to moderate room size where you're listening distance isn't over 10-12 feet (3-4 meters) and don't plan on playing them super loud you'll be fine with this amp. Switching to a better amp really won't get you better audio quality per se, it'll simply give you a higher limit on how loud you can play them.

As for your question is it good? Yes, with the conditions above, SMSL seems to put out good amps, Topping amps would be another brand to look at if you want something else to compare with.

Yeah I will only be using them as computer speakers so I won't ever need them to go crazily loud so after what you have said it seems like that amp should be perfect.