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Amp or DAC?

I’ve wondered about this for a while and was hoping for some opinions: 

Let’s say I compare the same company’s 75w into 8 amp and their 150w into 8 amp. Will I notice a difference in sound quality? If so, why?

If there is a difference between the 75w and 150w per channel amp can I narrow the gap or even exceed the 150w amp by using a better DAC?

Also, has anyone noticed that a lower watt amp has less distortion than a higher powered one, so throwing my understanding that the same manufacturer’s higher powered amp should be superior to it’s lower powered one out the window?
cd45123

Showing 3 responses by cd45123

cd45123 OP
191 posts
 
@djones51 it was a Purifi compared to a Hegel H90. Great clarity/quickness with the Purifi, but didn’t notice any more ‘control’ of the woofers from one vs the other. 
Have you compared an AHB2 with your class D amps? 
cd45123 OP
191 posts
 
I tested them against two bookshelf’s - LS50 and Unifi UB5, since these are supposed to be somewhat ‘hard to drive’

I just meant bass response 
cd45123 OP
191 posts
 
@kijanki I agree that it may be the other way around and I’ve heard  it mentioned that this can be the case. I did my own comparison of with a 60w into 8 integrated amp that is stable down to 2ohms compared to a 225 into 8 amp, 425 into 4, and aside from the sound signature differences, I didn’t feel like one was controlling the speakers better than the other. 
Granted, there were other differences as the lower powered amp was class AB vs class D for the higher powered one, but both seemed to have the type of parts and engineering necessary to drive moderately difficult speakers (LS50 and the Unifi UB5) for a lesser amp.

For the integrated amp, I think most of the improvements are DAC based up the range , since they seem to share, from what I can tell, mainly the same amplification tech.
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