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Watts and power

Can somebody break it down in layman's terms for me? Why is it that sometimes an amp that has a high watt rating (like, say, a lot of class D amps do) don't seem to always have the balls that much lower rated A or AB amps do? I have heard some people say, "It's not the watts, it's the power supply." Are they talking about big honkin' toroidal transformers? I know opinions vary on a speaker like, say, Magnepans - Maggies love power, right? A lot of people caution against using class D amps to drive them and then will turn around and say that a receiver like the Outlaw RR2160 (rated at 110 watts into 8 ohms) drives Maggies really well! I'm not really asking about differences between Class D, A, or AB so much as I am asking about how can you tell the POWER an amp has from the specs? 
redstarwraith
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
and 150 into 8, is still better than 200 into 2 ohms,
Good luck finding a speaker that is a flat 8ohm pure resistive load, with no -phase angle

You listen to your $420 3000w Behringer Class-D’s, I’ll take the ML2’s any day of the week over the Behringer into quality speakers that are hard to drive.


There will be absolutely nothing anemic about it compared to the ML2
You listen to one on the Alexia's, then you'll know.
Listen to what your saying and we’d all using $420 3000w class-d PA amps
optimize
164 posts
 
I am so tired on insufficient information from the manufacturers..

They only tell us power in wattage (in one or another way).
From school it is amps multiplying with voltage gives wattage.

Where we consumer only have wattage then we can not know much of each component the amp gives for example get 100 watts.

Is it 2 amp and 50 volts ?
OR
Is it 4 amp and 25 volts ?
OR
Something completely else?

Some speaker technology types benefits if the wattage consists of high amount of ampere.
But we will never know which amps that delivers a lot of ampere..

Just a another small factor to add to the list.. 🥰
audiozenology
362 posts
 
100w pure class A into 2 Ohm ... Means 100W is all you get , no headroom. Now you are trying to change the measure because your anemic claim was fantasy? That's not too honest now is it?


Your selective cut and paste and your mention of phase angle shows you neither understand my post nor amplifier specs. You are making a claim about an amps potential performance that is impossible to make with only continuous power specs.
audiozenology
362 posts
 
Optimize, yes we do know what you are asking if say they give a spec into 8, 4 and 2 ohms which many do..
gadios
94 posts
 
I would try reading from the recognized experts.
D'AGOSTINO or NELSON PASS. 
You will find confirmations of what Oiche lays out. 
Pass has a simple weight to watt ratio
he talks about for his A and A/B gear that I found
a good tool.
Have Fun Shopping!
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