Sanders biases his arguments towards his own amps which are admittedly great values in high powered amps. Yes, high powered tube amps waste a lot more energy as heat than an AB SS amp. He is also expressing his opinion with a bias toward driving his electrostatic speakers. He dismisses OTL amps off hand. He is right that you need to use a lot of tubes to reduce the impedance of the output section but once you do so they are every bit as effective at driving electrostats as SS amps. Sanders is right about clipping affecting the sound quality of amps. Power is expensive it is also everything in terms of producing realistic dynamics at comfortably loud volume levels. Boulder has come to the same decision. There is no such thing as too much power and I am inclined to agree. I am also guilty of being attracted to notoriously inefficient loudspeakers. All things being equal you are way better off buying more power than more cables.. Audioman58, transformers do not make power no matter how big they are and no transformer is always better than any transformer. There is no SET amp capable of the kind of visceral dynamic sound close to being realistic. IMHO they make great headphone amps. There is no speaker efficient enough to make a Set amp produce an undistorted 95 db comfortably which is around what is measure in most small jazz clubs. I suppose if you live in an attached condo and can't disturb the neighbors they are fine. Seigan, a 100 watt tube amp clips at exactly the same place as a 100 watt SS amp. But tube amps clip softly while SS amps clip hard. The Tube amp sounds better clipping than the SS amp which may be the major cause of the attraction of tube amps. The tube amp will seem to play louder. But any amp that is not clipping will sound better than an amp that is. You get an amp to POWER your loudspeakers. Power is everything. The more you can afford the better, Tube or SS.
