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?
Boring? Not in the least, but who am I to tell a seasoned race car junkie with a splash of music exposure to boot. Yea, I’m serious. Here is my in car camera view of one of the thousands of passes I’ve made in the last 25 years of driving one of these things. Loud? Most certainly. But I like music loud also, when its called for. |
nitrobob wrote:
Top fuel? Wicked, your username certainly makes sense now. Those engines with that kind of fueling makes a physically felt havoc of noise.
Maybe you need music loud for that very reason ;) |
My most recent experience of a Valve Amp design producing 3 Watts Output, has been a revelation. I stepped of the Bus many years past, in relation to Low Watt Valve Amplification, when I had been embarked on the journey to discover my ideal Valve Amp Design. I could not endear to SE and PP was my preferred design, especially bespoke built 845 PP Amp's. Yesterday a bespoke built design using a Triode Pre > Triode / Pentode Power Amp', coupled to reasonably efficient Speakers blew me away. The Headroom, expanse of Soundstage and Separation between performers is possibly unheard to me. The detail that was able to be audibly detected was extremely unusual, but really wanted to be maintained. I am a Flea Watt convert, within 30 minutes of the new experience, I'm over the moon it continued on for another 3 hours. |
3 Watts of valve amplification may be sufficient to drive some very efficient speakers in a small room in nearfield listening mode. It may produce all the fine attributes you mentioned but for most meduim/large speakers in a medium/large room setup this wattage will certainly not be sufficient. In the context of how many watts we need, with all the virtues of valve amplifiers, 3W/10W/20W will not be able to energies any meduim/large room in any satisfying way in many/most cases. One should also be guided by speaker's recommended amplification. In my case, I was once interested in a very high end 50W valve amplifier but when I spoke to the manufacturer they said for my speakers and in my room 50W will not be sufficient! I will need 160W valve amp to be fully able to energise the room and get the best out of my speakers. There must be a reason why the company also sell 250W valve monoblocks. My speaker's recommended amplification: 50-1000W into 8 ohms. Sensitivity: 90dB . @rshank64 |
