It certainly does. Thanks for the clarification!
How many watts do you really need?
According to the president of D'Agostino, he and others make amps that are way more watts than any of us will ever need and almost none of them stay in class A very long.
- ...
- 68 posts total
Other than room size, listening distance, the degree to which the listening room is dampened/treated with acoustic measures, the specific amp design and SPL preference as relative factors: For one I’d say watts and their need in quantity is very dependent on the load presented to the amp as well as speaker efficiency. The latter aspect may be needless to point out, and in particular has been impacted by a decades long design prevalence, the need to keep size at bay, and (the want for) fairly deep bass extension from said limited size factor. The load itself however and its issue is exacerbated by a conservative/habitual approach to the amp-to-driver interface in conjunction with the design prevalence of low efficiency, direct radiating dynamic driver principle. By a mile most speakers are passively configured with built-in crossovers that are "seen" by the amp on its output side, and so the crossovers take the full output from the amp before it’s redirected to each of the drivers. Wanting for larger full-range (typically high-end segment) speakers in this context usually requires a multi-way approach with complex crossovers that with their often steep phase angle behavior and low impedance dips in the lower octaves can present a serious load-challenge to the amp. Conjugate circuits only adds to the complexity and have a tendency to bring new issues with them than what they aim to correct. A monstrous overbuilt KW-amp may help to bring such speakers to life, but it can never fully alleviate the effect of large, complex passive crossovers placed between it and the drivers; the "damage" has already happened, and one can only hope to minimize its negative effect. It’s why the following is quite obvious to me: one should not equate those monster amps with elite audiophilia as much as a symptom of the load difficulty presented to them from multi-way, passively configured, low efficiency, load heavy and power hungry speakers. Concluding: why spend that much effort and money on an amp-measure that doesn’t address the problem at its core? As it is the power craving, passively configured speakers mostly serve to keep the monster amps in business. Conversely active speakers as an answer to that mayn’t solve overall what they bring to the table with the improved amp-to-driver interfacing, but that’s a matter of consideration given to the whole range of design choices rather than the inherent performance potential and advantage as an active approach. When it’s more about amp-to-driver interface optimization as a synergized and a priori design measure rather than just 1) pouring evermore power into a 2) "black hole," I’d say we’re given a much better outset for a more effective use of amp power and its performance envelope, not to mention the positive effect it has on driver control and all that implies. |
When I heard the Gryphon Apex at an audio show, I thought the Sonics could be my end game…until I saw the 100k price tag. Class A in SS can get very hot with more watts. Sliding bias SS amps run much cooler, but are somewhat expensive and usually out of budget. I have a second system with 100db speakers to discover class a tube magic beginning with flea watt SET amps. Trying to keep a lid on spending as I explore. |
It just occurred to me, but I'm not sure if VU meters in general are useful because they show the average, and therefore will never tell you the peak which is what we're trying to discover. |
- 68 posts total