Is there such a thing as too much power?

McIntosh Amps, power indicator meters, if showing a scale of watts, hardly move. That is literally the first watt. Juice the volume all the way up to reach/show avg. 5 watts, lots of sound!

You need to push a button, change/minimize the measurement scale to get them to actively move. They tell you a lot about how little power your speakers need, or how much, but still not much for inefficient ones.

They have a peak hold option on some meters, to show you how much (maximum) was needed for the most demanding part of that musical track.

For me all dynamic speakers that need more power that gives EL34 push-pull amplifier have compressed sound.
You can use 1000 Watt amplifier with these speaker but it wouldn't change this character.

You can never have too much power. Full stop.

This statement is only true in theory.  In the real world where we all live, there are practical considerations that cause this statement to be false.

Apparently there is a need to explain why as I see a lot of myth in the posts above. If you look at the distortion curve of many amps, you will see the distortion starts at a certain level, **drops** as power is increased to about 5-7% of full power, then rises at power levels above that until it takes off at clipping.

Now the simple fact is that most of the time the music you hear is not requiring a lot of power- that power is needed mostly for transients.

If the speaker you have selected is very easy to drive, and the amplifier is very powerful, then you might say you have unlimited power since you can't clip the amp and stay in the room. But you won't be hearing what the speaker or amplifier can really do, since you'll be operating the amplifier 97% of the time **below** that minimum distortion point. Below that point, noise and distortion obscure detail due to the ear's masking principle. There will also be tonal aberrations as the ear converts distortion into tonality, and favors that over actual frequency response.


So there is a reason why matching an amplifier to a speaker on a simple power basis is good if **sound quality** is your goal!  A very powerful amplifier works best on a speaker that is less efficient, so that you can operate at power levels where the amp is making less distortion. Conversely this is why a lower power amp sounds best on a higher efficiency speaker.


Now *some* amplifiers have a distortion curve where the distortion drops linearly to unmeasurable as power is decreased. If you have one of those amps, then you can have a lot of power on an efficient speaker and get away with it- have your cake and eat it too.


But there aren't many amps that do that, and most of them don't make a lot of power- being SETs. Now we make an amp that gets around this problem, because of our topography (and the lack of feedback) we are able to get this type of distortion curve. We're not the only ones- Nelson Pass is successful with this approach in some of his designs. Its tricky- the amp has to be linear at low power levels. Amps with feedback often have the feedback poorly applied (and so is not always able to correct the way it should) and so you see the distortion rise at lower power levels. One of the few solid state amps I can think of that has a better feedback setup is the Benchmark, and there are a few class D amps as well.

The point here is saying that higher power is better without taking into consideration how the amp behaves is the same as suggesting that flushing $$$$$ down the loo is a good idea. Its isn't. You have to take into consideration how it is the amp makes all that power. Now I happen to agree that paralleled devices to get more power is a good thing- that's how we do it as well. I've already outlined where I think the problem lies, although I've only nutshelled it for the sake of brevity and this is already a too long post.

From my own listening experience, I have heard great examples of different types of amps so I hesitate to say what sort of amps sound best.  I currently own two pushpull amps--one a push-pull triode amp using a 45 tube, the other utilizing the 349 tube (tetrode, I believe).  I also own a parallel single-ended amp that utilizes 2a3 triode tubes.  Of the three, I favor the 349-tube amp. 

Of the candidates for best amp I've ever heard, I would place a custom-built OTL amp at the top--astonishingly dynamic and lively without being hard-edged and brittle sounding.  The only competitor, to me, is a push-pull amp running the exceedingly rare 252 tube.  I heard the 252 amp playing against an Audio Note Kageki (that is the parallel SET 2a3 amp I also own) both driving Audio Note AN-E speakers, and it was no contest--the 252 amp blew away the Kageki.

While my preference is for tube amps, I had a friend's First Watt J-2 in my system for two weeks and liked it very much. I could easily live with that amp even if I preferred my Kageki and the 349 amp.  That same friend built an SIT amp using the schematics supplied by First Watt for DIY amps; I heard that amp in his system and it was a terrific sounding amp as well.  

Tube or solid state, I like lower powered amps combined with high efficiency speakers.

Stand by- Krell is currently working on the answer. 

Current-ly. Get it?

Admittedly not much of a joke. But then neither is this subject. I mean, the idea anyone still thinks power correlates with quality is mildly entertaining.  But its no joke. Its just funny anyone still thinks that way.