More power or better quality power?

Phoenix469,

I definatly disagree with Mr.Reynolds. Having owned NAD from 1986 to 1990. And recently auditioning a NAD 325BEE for use at work. In my recent audition I was disapointed in the system as a whole. I attribute this mostly to the NAD, although a good piece for its price I have become spoiled. Qulity is definatly more important than quantity. Your speakers deserve the best integrated or pre/amp you can easily afford. Musical Fidelity and Sonus Faber as a combination come to mind. I have had a chance to listen to various combinations of the two numerous times in the show room and at RMAF, IMHO they make a good combination.

I agree with Dwhitt in that there are many things that make up a system and one of the most important is the room. I feel you have made a good choice with corner placement of your system. You room is by no means large. I would call it medium and square is other than ideal. Ok that said try different speaker placements with the sub off and just see what happens. You might be suprised.

If you are going to step up from the NAD do your homework even if you have to take your speakers, CDP and cables with you. It will be time well spent.

Good Luck.

Bob,

I would define a quality watt as follows. An amps ability to reproduce music accuratly without clipping or distorting. This may seem easy but without a quality power supply and a good supply of reserve power it is virtuatly impossible. Lets take a guitar if you are listening to music at say 5 watts the initial pluck of the guitar string may require 50 watts peak to peak to be acuratly reproduced. As the note decays of course the signal or power required reduces. It is the initial pluck that draws on the current reserves of the power supply.

Again a transistor or valve must not reach saturation during this initial pluck. There by clipping or distorting the signal. A transistor by its very nature will clip the signal. A valve will distort the signal. It is my understanding that some manufactures have what is called soft clipping circuits for their SS amps, so they act more like a valve amp at higher volumes. Valves and transistors have a maximum voltage rating at which point they will clip or distort. It is up to the designer to decide on what those ratings need to be to acuratly reproduce peaks in the music not just the max power of the amp.

A quality watt has nothing to do with the ability of the amp to play at ear splitting volumes. But as I said previously the ability to accuratly reproduce the music being fed to it at reasonable volumes. If you listen at ear splitting levels the only way to reproduce the music accuratly is with massive amounts of powerr and current reserves.

Hope I was clearer than mud.

P.S. My normal listening level is between 9 and 10 o'clock.

Musical Fidelity A308 Integrated or the new A5 Integrated. Looked in the classifieds no A308's listed.