2. amps-preamps
  3. 153225-130247

Watts and power

Can somebody break it down in layman's terms for me? Why is it that sometimes an amp that has a high watt rating (like, say, a lot of class D amps do) don't seem to always have the balls that much lower rated A or AB amps do? I have heard some people say, "It's not the watts, it's the power supply." Are they talking about big honkin' toroidal transformers? I know opinions vary on a speaker like, say, Magnepans - Maggies love power, right? A lot of people caution against using class D amps to drive them and then will turn around and say that a receiver like the Outlaw RR2160 (rated at 110 watts into 8 ohms) drives Maggies really well! I'm not really asking about differences between Class D, A, or AB so much as I am asking about how can you tell the POWER an amp has from the specs? 
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georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
clearthink And the result, of such "modern manufacturing" is a product that sounds awful but hey it’s a "lower margin market" so that is to be anticipated and expected.

If it existed it would be PA, junk and it wouldn’t be getting it’s 1500w from a well designed amp with great current ability that can double down from 325w @ 8ohm and 750w @ 4ohms.
No, the 1500w would be the result of residue from current starvation from an amp that was originally 6000w or 8000w at 8 or 4ohms, and it would sound like junk

Cheers George

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moskaudio
28 posts
 
All of this amp conversation has me wondering what amps would best fit my pairs of Focal 936s and Focal 906s. They sure are audio file sensitive. I imagind they are also amp sensitive as they dip to 2.8ohms I believe? 

Regardless I'm not using anything special at the moment. Rotel rx-1052 receivers with external schiit audio DACs. The 906s seem happy. It sounds good to me but the 936s seem to be missing bits of full range or any kind of real authority punch youd expect from a tower speaker. 
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