1-1/2 Watts?

I’m of the mindset that not all watts are not created equal.  I’ve gone from as much as 255wpc (Hafler) down to about 17 wpc (Dynaco/VTA in triode) with my current tube amps using speakers of average efficiency (~89dB) in a large heavily carpeted room.  It’s as loud as I need it.  Many cheap amps are "test bench" watts using a sign wave into a resistor.    1-1/2 watts isn’t a lot, but is enough for my normal lower volume listening if it’s a good amp and can deliver it’s power with music as a source into an actual reactive speaker load.  The need for extra power usually comes from huge dynamic peaks when playing music loudly.  As always, there are lots of variables in play.

I'm only a solid-state guy, so take my opinion with a grain of salt...  

I recently upgraded to very powerful mono-blocks with a VU gauge in them and I was amazed how little power it says I am running.  My speakers weren't chosen for efficiency, and are spec'd at just 88dB, but I tend to listen around 1-2W most time, and very often what seems to be tenths of a watt or so - it's tough to read the gauges at that point.

What I have noticed is that content of the music matters greatly. Listening to bass-heavy music (Billie Eilish) at the same volume as more acoustic fare (Craig Finn) really demonstrated this to me.  Just adding a little bass thump will push the power up to a whopping 5W or so - and that's with a powered subwoofer handling the really low frequencies.

I wonder how the small amps are spec'd for continuous vs instantaneous power.  If they're separately spec'd, is the instantaneous power significantly higher that the 1.5W? 

I have a Dennis Had built Inspire Fire Bottle with EML 45 tubes and a Had LP3.1 preamp pushing my Klipsch Forte II's.  Barely 2 watts, but man do those Forte's sing.  I have another system with a Reisong A-10 EL34 that is around 12 total watts, and it gets my Polk Audio Monitor 10's as loud and crisp as I need.  Sometimes less is more.

Check out the Decware website if you want to dig into this a little more.

It’s events and stories like these that help people (hopefully) understand it’s not the wpc of the amp or sensitivifty of the speakers that have anything to do with how they sound, only how loud they may get. Some will still deny it, but objectively and scientifically, it’s true.