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Speaker wants 100 watt RMS. Is 40 watt tube OK?

I’m considering changing form parasound a21 to Manley Mahi monoblocks (40 watt tube) to go with my Monitor Audio gold 300s.

the speakers (90 dB sensitivity) say they want minimum 100 wpc.  

What kind of problems (any?) will I run into?
otherones
lukaske
307 posts
 
Orpheus10 , you are right. Tubes gives a louder sound, but more correct. When the tube-amp is 40 W, than he gives constantly 40 W. I had a Copland 405 tubes (25w) ,with the Audio Monitor PL 300 (350w): In a room of 55m2. It sounded incredibly beautiful. You gonna enjoy it!!!!  When you play exactly 10 W in your room ,after an hour ,  you go walk in the park ,because it’s very loud
dickhertz
24 posts
 
Please correct me if I'm wrong as I am not an expert but I have always felt that that the higher current amps give much better control over the speaker. Damping also plays a critical role. I feel like watt ratings although important are usually a marketing term to ill informed consumer.
 
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,788 posts
 
Please correct me if I'm wrong as I am not an expert but I have always felt that that the higher current amps give much better control over the speaker. Damping also plays a critical role. I feel like watt ratings although important are usually a marketing term to ill informed consumer.
Actually no speaker needs more than 20:1 for a damping factor and many need less. If the damping factor is too high the speaker is overdamped and an unnatural phenomena known as 'tight bass' occurs. Many audiophiles like tight bass, but its a coloration.
niodari's avatar
niodari
300 posts
 
I can tell you on my experience using 50 watts manley stingray with thiel cs 6.3 and even with larger cs 6s. Stingray perfectly drived cs 3.6 s for many years. Later i used 200 and 300 watts solid state amps with the same speakers. I cannot say that there was a luck of power from stingray
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,428 posts
 
Actually no speaker needs more than 20:1 for a damping factor and many need less. If the damping factor is too high the speaker is overdamped
True, above 20 it practically doesn't matter.  What difference could possibly 8/20 = 0.4 ohm make, when you already have about 6 ohm in the circuit (approx. 6 ohm is resistive impedance of 8 ohm speaker). 
Difference between DF=200 and DF=20 is like 6.04 ohm vs 6.4 ohm (6% difference for damping).   Difference between DF=200 and DF=2000 is even smaller  0.6%

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