In the 1970’s and 80’s it was fairly rare to find pro audio gear used in a home setting. Of course there have always been musicians and pro sound techs who have integrated pro equipment into home playback systems. With resurging interest in low powered tube amplification in the 90’s as well as a surge in small home office and headphone systems during Covid, a renewed search for high efficiency speakers with true high fidelity has been underway.
Most agree that there is something special about the sound of low powered tube amplifiers whether they are single ended triode, single ended pentode or other similar designs. The simplicity of these circuits seems to allow the music to shine though in a very natural way especially on human vocals and real acoustic instruments. Tubes have their critics of course, some stating that tube amps can have a soft, euphonic, or rounded off sound that is unnatural. I personally have heard amplifiers that fit this description but they have mostly been higher powered push-pull designs.
Having a truly revealing speaker system with a nearly flat frequency response is critical in noticing the differences in the sound of different amplifier designs. If your speakers are capable, differences in tone, timing and soundstage depth are readily apparent. An example of this would be a pair of Merlin VSM high end speakers that I owned in the past using a ScanSpeak mid/bass driver in a transmission line cabinet paired with the Dynaudio Esotar II tweeter. While not as efficient as a speaker built with pro drivers they were still extremely revealing. Most solid state amps I tried, both home audio and pro resulted in great bass control but a somewhat sterile, flat presentation. Moving to an Audio Research VT100mkII push pull tube amp, much better tone color, timing and depth were noticed. Moving to Cary Audio 805c single ended tube amps revealed even more color, more real physical sounding instruments and depth of field was the best I have ever heard. On one recording a pipe organ comes in toward the end of a song and more than one person remarked that the organ was 15-20 feet behind the right speaker! I have rarely heard this kind of soundstage depth since. There is usually a trade-off though as low powered tube amps do not have the solid, controlled bass that a high powered tube or a solid state amp has. Some people are clearing this hurdle by bi-amping using low powered tube amps for the upper bass through treble and separate solid state powered bass drivers. The truly experienced audio people have come to the conclusion that any system is a series of compromises. The experienced designer will accept (or work around) certain compromises in order for the design to excel in the most important areas and achieve the goal.
This brings us to the most common use of pro gear in home audio, which is high efficiency pro speaker drivers being incorporated into home audio speaker designs. One interesting approach is the open baffle speaker. Usually a large very efficient full range driver of at least 10 inches up to 18 inches are mounted to a single wood baffle with no sides or back. This results in an incredibly open sound that can only be found from the best electrostatic and planar speakers. A downfall of this design is weak bass. This can be overcome by a second large driver in the baffle only doing bass duty and/or separate subwoofers added to the system. It is possible to get the efficiency of these systems up around 95 to over 100db/1w/1m which is the range needed to make a low powered tube amp really sing.
Many other high efficiency speaker systems using pro drivers exist as well. Going back in time to the large horn loaded pre 1960’s systems by the likes of RCA, Western Electric, JBL and of course Altec with their Voice of the Theater designs. While some diehards and purists are using these exact vintage systems, there has lately been somewhat of a push to build more home friendly, (meaning physically smaller!) versions of these systems using modern pro components from companies such as Faital Pro, JBL, Ciare, 18 Sound and BMS etc.
One thing to keep in mind when it comes to pro drivers is their intended use. Pro sound is usually about projecting sound over large distances compared to home audio. It can be somewhat difficult to tame the pro drivers to perform well in an average listening room but it can be done. Pro drivers can have a tendency to sound as if they are shouting if not properly implemented in a home audio system. A good deal of time and effort has to be put into balancing the frequency response of these systems but the rewards can be great. Once you hear the realistic dynamics of a properly designed system using high efficiency pro drivers it is almost disappointing to listen to traditional home audio speaker designs. There are many forums such as DIYAudio where these issues are discussed and I will add a list of these forums elsewhere on this site.
Pro audio electronics are also being used in some modern home audio systems. From ultra powerful Crown amps used by those who prefer them for bass duty over class D amps to DAC’s by companies such as Wiess to equalization done in the digital domain using products from RME and Z-Systems, many pro audio components are making their way from the studio or concert hall into home systems. These components will be discussed in further detail as the site evolves.