Is there such a thing as too much power?

A lot of the stuff people believe about power makes an awful lot of sense. The only problem is that while the reasons make sense on paper they don't work out nearly so well in the real world. 

Point of order: one low-powered amp that sounds better than one high powered amp is by simple logic proof that power isn't everything. We have not one but hundreds of low powered amps that sound hugely better than thousands of much higher powered amps. So clearly something else is going on. 

What I think is going on, power is but one small item on a very long list of things that matter. In fact its kind of weak and pointless to qualify that. Its what I know is in fact going on. The list of things that affect sound is so much greater and longer than we know that it often strikes me as pointless to even be talking about them. 

I mean to talk about how many watts an amplifier puts out, in terms of sound quality, we might as well be talking about how many grains of sand in judging the beach at Cancun. Which would be a pretty nice beach... anywhere else but Cancun.

Hi @larryi ,

I'm not against to use, for example, small monitor speakers with sensitivity ~88-90dB/1W in 100-150 sq ft room. But in this combination even 300B SET will be enough.

I think the very popular but wrong way to do - using big low sensitivity  (< 88dB/1W)  big tower speakers in a big room.
In this situation need a huge amplification power and a result a strong and ugly compression.
 

My main system cast offs often end up in one of my other systems.  For a while I had my 440 watt per channel Wyred 4 Sound ST-1000 MKII in my bedroom with my 102 dB efficient Klipsch KLF-30 speakers.  I'm pretty sure that was too much power.  For that room and for what the system was intended for (mostly listening at quiet volumes before bed/sleep).

If not for the different gain settings on my ARC LS 26, the music would often have been louder than I wanted it, even at the lowest volume setting.  The KLF-30's have found a new home and now I have some much less efficient (and much smaller) Canton monitors in there.

The ST-1000 MKII was in my main system for a while and was replaced by Rogue Audio M-180 monoblocks that are "only" 180 WPC.  Great improvement in sound quality (not that the W4S amp was bad), and more than enough power.

There's a 30 WPC that I've been eyeing the last couple of days.  30 Class A watts.  I'm going to Pass on that one (see what I did there?), but watts are just one factor to take into consideration when it comes to amplification.

Why is everyone assuming that the make, quality and characteristics of an amplifier are changing when going to higher power ? The question asked, did not imply that.

Given everything else being equal, there is no argument except maybe just the cost and power consumption, that going to a higher power is always better.

So, what that means is, if you have amplifier model line A, with characteristics X, if you move to a higher power amplifier with EXACTLY the same characteristics, there is NO negative. It still is amplifier with model line A, with exactly the same characteristics X, just higher power. There is not one argument here which can defend that lower power is better in this case.

Think Pass labs for example, like upgrading from an XS150 to an XS300. In this case, in fact the quality is most likely even BETTER since the latter comes with a beefier power supply.

In the case of the Porsche examples people have indicated above, that would be akin to getting the same car, still a Porsche but now with a 400 hp engine than a 180 hp engine.  I admit my first example of having a 500hp car did not emphasize that point.

Do not equate going to a higher power, with also changing the quality. The two have nothing to do with each other.

The reason the industry moved away from high efficiency has a lot to do with the large size of typical high efficiency speakers.

Not all higher efficiency speakers are all that large. Many 'full range' drivers can be quite efficient yet the cabinets are reasonable sizes.

ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL (That is the part people seem to be missing) a higher power amplifier will always be preferable. It will run less stressed and have much more headroom.

As for the higher distortion at lower levels of a power amp, even those higher levels of distortion is still well BELOW anyone's hearing so it is a moot point.

The first statement is correct. The only problem is things are never equal. The second statement is simply false- it subscribes to the idea that 0.005% THD is 'low'. Its not low if that distortion is all higher ordered harmonics, owing to the fact that the ear uses these harmonic to sense how loud a sound is. It is this simple fact that is why solid state has a reputation for brightness- that's not coming from a frequency response error, its caused by distortion. 

Why is everyone assuming that the make, quality and characteristics of an amplifier are changing when going to higher power ?

Because they often do.

Given everything else being equal, there is no argument except maybe just the cost and power consumption, that going to a higher power is always better.

The 'Given' isn't a given. One problem you can have is that higher powered amps usually also have more gain. If you put that amp on a higher efficiency loudspeaker, the noise floor can be annoying, the additional distortion (due to the amp operating below its point of lowest distortion) notwithstanding.

Do not equate going to a higher power, with also changing the quality. The two have nothing to do with each other.

In this regard your statement flies in the face of conventional wisdom which is based on experience of many many people over decades! As a manufacturer we deal with this all the time: "Don't your smaller amps sound better?" Ask any manufacturer- they will tell you they get this question often.

We are one of the very few manufacturers that make more powerful amps that actually **do** sound better than our smaller ones- this owing to how we scale up our power levels. But most solid state and nearly all tube amps sound better in their smaller embodiments, so long as the speaker allows for the lower power.