Watts! How many do we need?


Got a new amp. Accuphase P-4600. It’s great. I love it. 
150 watts into 8 ohms, 300 watts into 4 ohms and it has meters so I can see wattage. Have them set on freeze so I can see the highest wattage during the session.

My Harbeth speakers are not very efficient. Around 86db. Their impedance is an even 6 ohms dipping no lower than 5.8 ohms. 

Playing HiRes dynamic classical recordings  ( Tchaikovsky , Mahler) at room filling volumes I have yet to exceed 1watt.. 

Amps today offer a lot of watts some going to 600 even 1200 watts. Even if you have inefficient speakers with an impedance that dips down to 2 ohms do we need all this wattage or should we be focusing on current instead? 

jfrmusic

@weatcoastaudiophile

Still don’t understand how you calculated your number from those specs but you were on the money. Here’s the response from Accuphase. 
 

The actual amount of Class A bias for the P-4600 is not a fixed amount and will vary depending on the load of the speaker.  For most speakers it should have around 8W – 10W of class A bias but that could be less for speakers if they have less than 4 ohm impedance.  The exact method for how Accuphase applies bias to its output transistors is considered proprietary information and they do not allow us to publish more than that.

@westcoastaudiophile

As a follow up I guess I’m mostly running in Class A since I have not been able push my meters pass 1 watt. 

@ifrmusic thanks for asking Accuphase support! being advanced analog circuit designer it’s not hard for me to estimate AB class amp linear (A class) range, sorry for not explaining to you all boring details of my calculation, which could be lengthy! 

The success of the Pass 25 and other small-bore tube amps Indicates that's plenty for most applications. But remember this - speakers are current driven devices and benefit greatly from amps acknowledging that fact.

Most modern speakers are less than 8 ohms and so are quite current hungry. Also, loudness is logarithmic, so twice the power is only 3dB louder - a just noticeable difference. To sound twice as loud requires 10X the power. Also remember the limits of your speakers. KEF LS50s 84dB @ 1W/1M and 100W limits means they are limited to 104dB maximum output. A big JBL 4367 is at least 10dB more efficient and will handle 200W peaks for a max output of 117dB.  The KEFs are meant for near field listening only a few feet away, the JBLs meant for a large room with the listener 10-15 feet away, so it all must be worked as a system, not just components in isolation. As for me, my 87dB Monitor Audio S300 7G and a solid 60W amp in my 12X16 room is plenty. In other systems, 200W was just adequate, and in another a 40W tube Mcintosh MC240 was fabulous. Lots of valid answers, just don't ignore physics.