What is your experience with amp power?


So I wanted to know what my fellow audiophiles feel about power.

I realize that some speakers are current hounds and need a prodigious amount of power or watts (lets say Maggies). But my question is for speakers that do not. Speakers that are easy to drive, or maybe just higher in efficiency and can be driven by a modest tube amp or even an adequate receiver. 

What is you experience with high power, high current amps ? Do your speakers sound better with more power? At low volumes, in a small or medium sized room? Do you think the quality of the music is dependent on higher powered amps?

128x1282psyop

bigkidz is correct.

Do not concern yourself with amount of amplifier power, concern yourself with quality of amplifier power.

I bought my amp from a custom builder who also built my preamplifier.  They are "matched" in a way because the amp has input transformers that demand, for optimum performance, being matched to a line stage or preamplifier with a corresponding output transformer.  I had this combination for about five years or so, and in that time, I would sometime be asked how much power the amp put out and I had no idea whatsoever.  When the builder, who is from Italy, came over to the states, I got to talking to him and I asked him about the output power of my amp.  I got such a look of disdain from him; clearly I did not deserve that amp if I concerned myself with such irrelevant and trivial matters.  He thought about it a bit himself and took a guess (I would not expect him to have actually measured it, how it sounds is the only consideration); he guess 5.5 wpc, which is my answer to anyone who asks.

for those worrying about the clear-as-mud, here's a simple solution:

the Marantz 40N amp is simple, has real knobs, and has 75 wpc rated and is enough for almost any reasonable home 

@czarivey What is this 'poor dynamic floor' on high sensitivity speakers to which you object? Never heard that term before.

@mulveling  - yes if you read all of the posts, there are plenty of inaccurate statements regarding power and sound quality.  It is not my opinion but there is plenty of designs that prove this.  As my partner in my company that manufacturers tube components and he has a masters in electrical engineering, I have learned how things work and what makes them sound the way they do.  That being said, I am always open to learn something new but the inaccurate statements are based on how an amplifier can be designed and implemented.

Happy Listening.