Tubes Tubes Tubes...

I have heard similiar that some folks double the power of a tube amp, in comparison to a solid state. I don't get it??? But I have noticed little if any "power" problems and I recently went from a solid state 200watt/channel amp to a 60watt/channel tube amp, and it sounds great, plenty of volume. Nothing was lost and only things improved... dramatically I might add. But this is just my experience, though I have heard the same from others in the past, there may be a few different ideas shared here it should be interesting to read some other responses. Tim

It is because solid state amps like low impedance speakers. A 16 ohm speaker could suck the marrow out of a high wattage SS amp. While a lower wattage tube amp might drive it extremely well. Many tubes amps deliver higher current which quite a few speakers need more than wattage.

There is an archive article in sterophile mag, that explains the details if your interested

tubes have a lot more voltage and current. i can never understand how anyone can run apair of mls or sound labs with ss, just because what jtinn said about 16 ohms. thats why marton logans sound brash with ss.

Jtinn certainly has a point, but I think the greater reason for this comparison was the clipping characteristics of tube versus solid state amps in the earlier days of solid state design. When presented with power demands beyond the ability of the amplifier to deliver, tube equipment has a "natural" tendency to clip more gracefully with far less audibly objectionable distortion. Earlier solid state equipment tended to clip dramatically, noticeably and with a great amount of odd-order harmonic distortion. Instead of shredding one's ears, most tube equipment would just compress the sound level on those peak demands, and the distortion generated was a less jarring even-order harmonic distortion - much less objectionable. Accordingly, to play at the same volume level, one required a FAR higher power in a solid state amp to avoid that objectionable solid state clipping characteristic.

Thanks to Rushton!
VIVA!
You're not the first one that sais about clipping characteristics to me.
You must be an electronic engineer?
That's my primary reason to switch to tubes to drive my speakers.

I can only tell you that i just recently went from 150 watt per channel Threshold s/s amp to 30 watt mono Thor tube amps. The little tube monos has just as much power as the a Threshold. It suprised me too!

I went from Bryston's mighty 7BST's monoblocks toAronov 9100 monoblocks, "giving up" a lot of watss in the process. Cna't say I miss the Brystons at all. The Aronovs go plenty loud and have more than enough dynamic range and punch in my system