Intergrated or Solid State Whats The Difference ?


New to this equipment and I do not understand (quite a few things)the difference between an Intergated and a solid state amp, or the Pros and Cons of each.
And another thing, how do mono blocks provide enough power to drive power hungery speakers like VSA VR4's or B&W 800 or 802's. Seems to me the average tube amp provide 50 to 80 wpc.
Thanks
hap123

Showing 2 responses by pabelson

You're comparing apples, oranges, and kumquats. Here are the basics:

There are two basic kinds of amps: solid state and tube.

An integrated amp is a combination of a preamp (the control center, with volume and tone controls, among other things) and a power amp, which does the actual amplification. An integrated can be either solid state or tube.

A monoblock amp is a single-channel amplifier. In other words, for a stereo system, you'd need two of them, one for each channel. Again, they can be either solid state or tube.

Tube amps generally offer much less power than solid state, and have much higher measured distortion. Tube partisans offer a variety of rationalizations for why this is irrelevant, and why tubes are better anyway. To each his own.

But tubes are definitely not for neophytes. I'd strongly recommend that you stick to solid state until you've moved further up the learning curve.
Maybe someone with more knowledge can explain the power of a SS to a tube. I do know that my Quad 909 (140 wpc) doesn't have as much punch as my buddies Rogue M150 running in triode mode at 75 wpc.

Have you hooked both up to the same speakers, in the same room? If not, you're comparing entire systems, not amps.

It's also possible that you are subconsciously playing the tube amp louder. A fair comparison requires you to match levels--with a voltmeter at the speaker terminals, not a cheap SPL meter. (It's possible that one is playing slightly louder without your knowing it; that's why precise level-matching is necessary.)

If you've covered those bases, then it's likely that there's something audible in the tube amp's distortion profile that gives you that "punch."

It's also possible that the specs are misleading. This has nothing to do with tube-vs-SS, of course. One amp may do better into a particular load (hence the better spec), but not so well in real-world conditions. You'd need better measurements to check this. Good measurements are graphs, not numerals.

Finally, it' always possible that you're just preferring the tube amp subconsciously. Try comparing the two blind (and level-matched), and see if the tube amp is still punchier.