No Danny, watts are watts, and they are calculated exactly the same way, whether by tube or transistor.
It's just that some people have really, really, efficient speakers (100+ dB@1W), so they only need single digit power to run them. And that camp believes that everything is in the first watt. Get that right, and not much need for anything else. Get that wrong, and 100 more watts won't help a bit.
You can find tube amps that put out 800wpc. They are expensive, big, heavy, and put out an insane amount of heat. But, they are there for the having.
It's just that some people have really, really, efficient speakers (100+ dB@1W), so they only need single digit power to run them. And that camp believes that everything is in the first watt. Get that right, and not much need for anything else. Get that wrong, and 100 more watts won't help a bit.
You can find tube amps that put out 800wpc. They are expensive, big, heavy, and put out an insane amount of heat. But, they are there for the having.