Please explain

By definition a watt is a watt. Some say tube power is more but I think it is because a tube amp generally clips more gracefully giving the idea it has more power than it does. I would like to see a 20 watt tube amp stand up to a 200 watt solid state at 20hz. Volume wise, you know as for loudness, there's not much difference in 20 and 200 watts. Generally, at reasonably sane levels, you don't use but a few watts anyway.

Watts are Watts period. The SOUND is what most vendors refer to. Normally tube amps have more distortion but distortion is in even ordered harmonics, which sounds more pleasant. SS has odd ordered harmonics, which tends to sound harsher. For some of us the tube can be played louder with less listener fatigue because of this.

SS amps usually have more HEADROOM for transient music demands, tube amps with low power have less headroom so overall demands cannot usually be met at a equal higher volume level for a low efficient speaker if comparing SS to Tubes. This is why we prefer efficient speakers and speakers with less electronics in the way. Efficient speakers do not require a lot of current to produce signals at the max sound output, which usually is somewhere between 100-107db. This way a 8 watt amp can put the same Decibels out as a 400 watt amp, as the speaker just cannot go beyond this without physical damage.

The tube amp is usually the least expensive part of the overall equation as higher efficiency speakers can be very expensive compared to a lower efficiency counterpart.

barone.

ive tried ss vs tube & measured both wattages & spl in both type amps,the theory of a tube watt being more powerfull than a solid state watt is nothing more than a myth, a watt is a watt.

the main differences are as bigtee pointed out that most tube amps will continue to produce power through a clip where a solid state amp will not, the other difference ive found is a weaker bass response from tube amps that i attribute to their extremely low damping factors.

bigtee.

the difference between 20 watts & 200 watts is actually pretty large, every time you double wattage you gain about 3db in spl, 10 times the wattage is approx twice the volume.

I think the point about 20 vs 200 is that if you have any hearing left you are usually only using 5-10 watts of power (even on inefficient speakers). At reasonable volume levels you should not be running at full tilt.

The more amperage that a given watt is composed of, the more powerful that watt sounds (IMO). Watts have both an ammperage component and a voltage component. Someone with a more technical background could give a more scientific reason why, but 125 Sony watts do not sound nearly as powerful (not to mention musical) as 75 parasound/pass/YBA/etc watts.