2. amps-preamps
  3. 1038620469

Riddle me this...

Why is it that you cannot seem to purchase a lower-powered solid state amp any more? None of the “names” in solid state amps seem to make any reasonably priced or powered products at all, and most haven’t since about the early 90s. (A few come to mind right off, Levinson no. 29, Rowland Model 1, Krell KSA-80, the family of Pass Alephs). These days, the most modest offering from any of these companies (not to mention everyone else) is many times more expensive, in no small part due to the fact that they are all many times more powerful.

Question is, why? Why should I need 250wpc+ to drive any reasonably designed speaker? What is it about the industry that seems to be in a conspiracy (or, at least, conscious parallelism, for you antitrust geeks) to foist more and more power on the consuming public while, at the same time, doubling or tripling prices for their most modest gear? Why is it that, if I want a really nice amp at less than 100wpc, I have to either go with tubes or with gear that was made at least a decade ago? Why is it that most speakers made these days are either “tube friendly” or “require” an amp with enough power to light a small village to actually go?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got inefficient speakers and a 250wpc amp which I like the sound of just fine. It just strikes me as preposterous that I (and we, if I may speak for the market) seem to have been conditioned to believe that this is necessary. Why on Earth wouldn’t someone get a reasonably designed, efficient pair of speakers and, say, a Pass Aleph amp for a negligible fraction of ANYTHING built by Pass these days and never look back? I understand there are plenty of legit reasons why more power can be desirable (“never can have too much” yea, yea, I know), but am a bit miffed that, legit reasons or no, the market no longer seems to offer choices. We a bunch of suckers, or what? (Yea, a bit of a rant, but this has been bugging me -- am I the only one? Did I miss something? Can I get a witness?)
mezmo
brulee
564 posts
 
Trelja, Twl beat me to it with his remarks about your post. Remember what I told you a year or two ago? I wish I had half your talent with words. Very impressive!
brianmgrarcom
1,317 posts
 
Food for thought, maybe all fingers shouldn't be pointed at at amp manufactures. As Ron has stated, they are only giving the customer what they want; do we not complain when manufacturers don’t do this?

One member above has stated that while he was a salesman, their shop couldn’t move low watt amps.

Also, it has been stated that marketing is the reason for bigger amps, this may or may not be; I recall reading the review of the Mark Levinson No.383 in Stereophile, in the measurements section, they stated, “The Levinson comfortably exceeds its specification, giving 145W into 8 ohms”; the No.383 is rated at 100W. If watts was a major marketing factor, I would think they would advertise the amp higher than 100W. (This of course is just one example.)

Again, just some thoughts.
maxgain
526 posts
 
Trelja, I don't understand the second paragraph of your second post at all? If you want romance read a cheap novel. If you want to reproduce a musical event in the most accurate way it seems obvious that as tube and SS designs improve(become more accurate or faithful to the original event,i.e. High Fidelity) that they will and do sound more similar to one another. The idea that some good tube amps(yes you pushed a button here as I own one of the amps you are putting down with this statement) are trying to imulate SS sound bewilders me. ARC is doing their best to make an amp that sounds "realistic", not some coloration to make them sound like solid state. They may not be your cup of tea, as you state your preference for "romantic" colorations over realism. I'm not saying that there is no room here for variations in taste. You only need to read a few of the posters systems listed and look at the daunting number of audio products available today to see that we all seem to have different ideas of what is accurate or even musical. About a year ago I had an old Dynaco PAS 2 that I dug out if the basement and stuck my stash of old, lightly used Amperex 12Ax7's in it, and hooked it up to the Dyna ST 70(also a very nice tube set with NOS 7199's and Svetlana EL34's) that I had updated for my Nephew. Talk about romantic and musical! This combo was great fun to listen to, but it was a musical event all of it's own making. It was big and deep and lush, but not what I would call accurate.Give me back my "SS sounding" ARC amp any day! Like I said it was fun and had a beauty that was unmistakeable but it didn't sound very realistic in so many ways. I don't want a tube amp or any other amp that sounds "like" a Krell or a Levinson, myself. I want an amp of any design that sounds like live music. That may be a foolish "romantic" notion.
gregm
3,399 posts
 
Trelja paints the picture of our reality I think. For the rest Twl & Sean have explained a good deal, in a complementary way. From a historical perspective, the "golden age" of audio sprang from the growth of the recorded medium dominating the music market after WW2. In classical this was very much the case for Europe: orchestras were disparaged during the war, people could not flood the concert halls and the proliferation of recorded music brought the symphony orchestra, based many miles away, to the home. BUT this necessitated equipment in order to listen, better equip to listen better, etc. Remember, entertainment in the old times was radio & the local concert venue -- and the little TV offered little to the music public. PLUS stereo flourished, and made reproduction even more difficult than it had been.

Nowadays, who cares apart from us....
shubertmaniac
350 posts
 
I think we all pursue this hobby or passion in our own way.
I at least think we do. I am ridiculed by my friends for spending 1000s of dollars for something that might bring that elusive something to my listening pleasure, being an amplifier,etc. I have a wife to contend with, who luckily (for the most part)is supportive of my passion for music.
I think there are very responsive audio companies out there
who are into making good music come alive. Some of those manufacturers are small, some quite large. The range of
choices is larger now than it has ever been. I am not against any company that brings out HT equipment if that helps keep a company alive while in the backroom it still makes its high end audio components.

There are many 50-100 watt SS amps out there that are great sounding. BEL 1001 is still making great sounds. Spectral
makes a killer 100 watter. The Parasound Halo 125 watter for $850 is a tremendous buy. Not to mention McCormick, Marsh, NAD, Classe, Simaudio. And I am sure there some underground models that I have never heard of that are out there.

For Tubed amplifiers in the 1980s, there was really only
ARC and conrad-johnson. Now there are so many choices it is
very hard to believe. Rogue, Cary, VTL, Manley, VAC, Quicksilver, Jolida, etc. Please tell me what is to complain about????

Yes, the Speaker designers are somewhat to blame, but if you want blame it on anybody just blame it on your selves.
You wanted speakers that sounded that much better, well
you got them. Maggies, Apogees, Martin-Logans, Acoustats.
All power hungry beasts!!! Sealed tombs like Avalon, Artemis, and their brethren. Power!!!

Yet even with those power hungry beasts, why a gigawatt of power??? I can drive my power hungry Acoustats with a
Spectral DMA50, 80 watter all day at normal listening volumes. OK, if I want rock concert earsplitting volume
I can drive two of them into oblivion. So the question is
are you all going deaf???
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