My longtime experience tells me that the size and quality of the amps power supply has the greatest effect on what we hear, keeping in mind, the amp is of good design. I personally experienced this when I purchased my Krell KSA 100 upon its introduction, while owning several other amps rated at 200wpc. At half the rated power of the others, it quickly became "my baby", as it took me to another level in overall listening enjoyment, with all my music, at all my playing levels and with many brands and models of speakers. I am sticking to my story, still today.
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@jonwolfpell agreed, Pass designs like my XA30.8 are totally sufficient at lower wattages even for higher spl listening. I also have subs which really helps take the strain off the amps. I've blasted it loud as hell and haven't seen the needle move. I would say though "powerful" is relative and there are other things than wattage to consider like toroidal capacity and how much amperes it's rated for. Along with so many other things... although some inefficient speakers DO really need that extra juice @ghdprentice and from the same manufacturer, yes more wattage is typically better for inefficient speakers and also has to do with other things like ohm load and impedence matching with the preamp to the amplifier @larsman I meant more like a physical one - check out BAFX spl meter on amazon or wherever you care to shop. It has served me well and is not expensive. My friends phone can be wildly off vs an actual calibrated meter. Best of luck to you! I'm always curious myself at volumes but if you're listening quietly it doesn't matter that much. Your ears will tell you when it's getting loud |
Thank you again, @jrareform - yes, I see they are about $17; I'll order one - I've got loads of Amazon points! |
Yes. That is exactly what I am saying.
I have never been a fan of Carver. But I remember decades ago him doing a demo of the sound of (I think this is right) a set of scissors cutting a piece of paper. He was able to measure the near instantaneous power demand to reproduce this sound (as opposed to normal gauges that are long term averages in comparison). Any the really large amp clipped during the snip, restricting the dynamics of the sound reproduction. That is the logical side. Then I have heard multiple versions of the same amps with the same speakers... and they sound better... so that is holding all other things constant. This have always been solid state amps. We are talking normal speakers... sensitivity 82 db to 96db. I have never played with 100db sensitive speakers... there could be some down side with speaker that sensitive. |
For the amp power levels question - I don’t even know anymore lol. Sure with "all else being equal", more power is better. But unfortunately in this hobby, there is abosolutely never an "all else being equal" scenario! Some specific scnearios I’ve experienced, which makes it impossible to correlate (or not correlate) sound quality to power:
It’s quite possible that some amps designs / topologies simply sound better when scaled up a lot in power. But then others...don’t. The Eico is an an example of an amp that sounds "good to the last Watt" (lots of focus on the "First Watt", but this can be important too). Others amp may require gobs of headroom to say out of a trouble zone. And some amps will just sound bad to you with your speakers, no matter what! |
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