More Power is always good?


Hi all,

I'm a little lost in my search for the amp. Does more power (like more than 100W) means good?

I have been around listening to various amps, maybe a little too much that confused me.

Say for a room of 16ft by 20ft. What is the optimum power requirement?

For example, once I heard the Sugden A21Se (Class A 30W) driving the Spendor S6E, everything was nice except that I found that the basss definition and extension is lacking which is a concern to me, the showroom was smaller than my room. That's why I'm looking for amp with more power (like 100W), am I wrong? Will Class A amp like Sugden MasterClass or Accuphase E530 or Lavardin or others similar amp with power rating of 30W-50W be sufficient?

by the way I am using the old SF Grand Piano Home. I'm looking for a good amp that will outlast the GP Home, i.e. I don't have to change amp when i change the GP Home.

Any comments?

Thank you.
pingpong
Think about being in a car pulled off on the side of the interstate. You want to get back on but there's a lot of traffic. Would you be safer trying to get up to speed to merge back onto the interstate with a four-cylinder or a turbocharged V-8?

The more power that you have the more headroom you have when you need it. Do you need it all of the time? No. But if you don't have it when you need it and you run out of headroom, you drive your amp into distortion. That will blow a speaker before anything else.
Just because someones spends a lot of money on a 3 watt amp doesn't mean it's necessarily good.

I like the car engine analogy.
The Sugden Class A watts are more comparable to a 6 cylinder Porsche.
More sophiscated, better at braking, cornering with wicked acceleration.
Better than the huge V8.
I think Krell Man makes a good point. You may not need the extra power, but once you become accustomed to what more power can do for you at all levels it becomes hard to go back to lower powered amps. The kind and amount of power you feed to your speakers to a huge extent determines how well they will do with their dynamic ability, and dynamic ability is probably the biggest factor in mimicking live sound.
Eljif makes the right point. It's the dynamics that need alot of power and once you listen through having adequate power you'll never go back.