Which watts are the right watts in SS amps?


Hello Sports Fans!

More than a few people over the years on these pages have said only those SS amps which double down in output power as impedance drops are truly special or worthy amps. Eg., 200 @ 8ohms; 400 @ 4 ohms; 800 @ 2 ohms; etc.

Not every SS amp made does this trick. Some very expensive ones don’t quite get to twice their 8 ohm rated power when impedance halves to four ohms. BAT, darTZeel, Wells, and Ypsalon to name just a few.

An amps ‘‘soul’’ or it’s ‘voice’ is the main reason why I would opt in on choosing an amp initially and keeping it. Simultaneously , I’d consider its power and the demands of what ever speakers may be intended to be run with it or them.

I’ve heard, 80% of the music we are listening to is made in the first 20wpc! I’m sure there’s some wisdom in there somewhere as many SS amps running AB, are biased to class A Only for a small portion of the total output EX. 10 – 60 wpc of 150 or 250 wpc.

After all, any amps true output levels are a complete mystery when anyone is listening to music anyhow.

I suspect, not being able to actually measure true power consumption, the vast majority of listening sessions revolve around 60wpc or so being at hand with traditional modern reasonably efficient speakers.

Sure, there are those speakers which don’t fit into the traditional loudspeaker power needs mold such as panels or electrostats, and this ain’t about them.

The possibility of clipping a driver is about the only facet in amp to speaker matching which gives a person pause while pondering this or that amplifier.

I feel there is more to how good an amp is than its ability tou double output power with 50% drops in speaker impedance.

However, speakers are demanding more power lately. Many are coming out of the gates with 4 ohm ‘nominal’ IMPs which lower with fluctuations in frequency. Add in larger motors on larger drivers, multiple driver arrays, and on paper these SOTA speakers appear to need more power.

IMHO It is this note which introduces great concern.

I’ve read every article I can find on Vienna Acoustics Music. Each one says give them lots of watts for them to excel.

Many times good sounding speakers I’ve owned sounded better with more power, albeit from arguably a better amp.

I tend to believe having more than an adequate amount of cap power is indeed integral. … naturally the size and type of transformers in play possess a strong vote for an amps ability to successfully mate with speakers.

Controlling a driver’s ability to stop and restart is as well a key to great sound and only strong amplifiers can manage this feat. Usually this gets attributed to ‘damping’ factor, but damping as I read it is more a shadow than a tangible real world figure as it depends on numerous factors. Speaker cable length alone can alter damping factors.

A very good argument exists about those mega watt amps voices. Each 500 or 600 wpc amp or amps, I’ve heard have had stellar voices too, not merely more watts.

So is it predominately these mega watt power house amps souls or their capacities that fuels the speakers presentation?

Would you buy an ‘uber expensive’ amp based more on its voice or soul, than on its ability to output loads of watts, even if you feel the amp may be somewhat under powered for the application?

Choosing this latter option also saves one money as the more powerful amps do cost more than their lower outputting siblings.

Please, share your experiences if possible.

Tanks muchly!

blindjim
In no real order the speaker short list is:
KEF blades, I & II, either or.
VA Listz or Music either or.
Wilson Sabrinas, Sashas, either or
TAD Evolution one

Longshots if found used:
Magico S5 latest ver?
Lanch 7?
Wilson XLS ?
YG ?
Eggelston Ivy, andrea II & III.

Most of these speakers (maybe not the Tad’s) without spending time to research their impedance v -phase angle graphs (EPDR), would want an amp that could deliver good (doubling wattage) current into low impedance’s, no amount of watts will make up for this if the amp doesn’t have that current ability.

Don’t just talk watts, talk about the watts be able to double for each halving of impedance as well.

BTW: blindjim There are two threads going at once on this one subject in different headings, ask the mods to get rid of one them.

Cheers George
Post removed 
@georgehifi
RE – duplicate threads
I will only post going forward to the TECH TALK thread to confuse the current situation less. I would advise others do similarly.

Yes. I saw that. Dunno how it happened. Admin must have switched it from amps to tech talk without merging the posts into the latter one and deleting the former.

Getting in touch with admin has some substantial hoops for me to leap thru navigationwise. Sorry.

I’ve no control there… if anyone would care to ask them to merge these conversations into one TECH TALK thread it would be fine by me.


The way each amp handled the paired speakers was fairly evident too in that the sound was tight. Quick. Clean.

Harmonics and dynamics differ from one setup to another but the speed and pacing were taught and pronounced. IMO those attributes are the result of power.
Actually that is the result of bandwidth. Output impedance can play a role in how 'tight' the bass is (but quite often, 'tight' also implies that the speaker is over-damped in the bass; while that gets you 'tight' bass it also means there is a loss of definition as the woofer is not allowed to move as far as it should).

The main thing you are looking for with your speakers is the ability of the amp to act as a voltage source. This is the idea that the amp can put out the same voltage regardless of the load impedance.

The thing is, the amp does not have to double power as impedance is cut in half at **full power**. This is why the CJ tube amp worked on the speakers- it does not have a lot of so-called 'current' yet could do the job just fine.

IOW, there are a lot more amps available to you that will do the job.

This is why the CJ tube amp worked on the speakers- it does not have a lot of so-called 'current' yet could do the job just fine.
 
Just picking one I had on file from his list Al, the Magico S5, a tube amp "may" work and sound ok with this sort of load.
But you will not get the best from them until you hear it driven properly with a solid state amp that can drive this sort of load with current.
  
There are likely others in that list that are even harder to drive.

https://www.stereophile.com/images/217MagS52fig1.jpg
" The impedance does drop to minium of 3.15 ohms at 78Hz and 3.55 ohms at 900Hz, and there is a current-hungry combination of 4.3 ohms and –49° at 51Hz."

Cheers George