Is there any truth to this question?

Digepix,

I hardly think that success with the RM 10 goes against common wisdom, at least with respect to the tube crowd. Thirty-five watts is plenty of power for the majority of speakers on the market, as long as one is not playing the speakers at extremely high volume in a very large room. There are also those that think that deep, tight bass is the be-all-and-end-all of musical reproduction and those people, too, might find anything less than 200 watts to be inadequate. The rest of the crowd really don't need that much power.

I am not surprised that you like the sound of the RM 10. A good El 84 amp will have the kind of clarity and punchy sound that would complement something like Vandersteen 2s and 3s. Many of the best bargain tube amps use that tube.

You should ignore "common wisdom" of the high-powered crowd and go with your own experience-- you seem to have clear preferences that are certainly NOT inconsistent with what a lot of others hear. By acknowledging that low-power gear CAN work with your Vandersteens, you expand the possible choices that could deliver satisfaction, at perhaps a substantial savings.

Just a handful of suggestions: Atmasphere's 30 watt OTL, tube amps from Audiospace (Hong Kong), tube amps from Synthesis (Italy), tube amps from DeHavilland, solid state First Watt J2 (25 watts).

"There are also those that think that deep, tight bass is the be-all-and-end-all of musical reproduction and those people, too, might find anything less than 200 watts to be inadequate. The rest of the crowd really don't need that much power."

Deep tight bass is very important to me but not the be-all-end-all. That's just one piece of the puzzle. But to get that one right, yes in many cases beefy amplification is exactly what is needed to get that right, but I find the rest need not suffer as a result and in fact can also still be top notch. It all depends....

The RM-10 is one of the best value amplifiers in production. The 35 watts was enough for the designer to use not only with Vandersteen's, but his Quad 57's and his own brand of ESL speakers. It is quite a versatile amp as it can be "light" loaded to reduce distortion and run the circuit more efficiently with less stress on the tubes, although there will be a reduction in power. The reduced power in a small room with speakers that have a smooth impedance curve this should not be an issue IMO. Try the 4 ohm taps or run the speaker leads from the 4 and 8 ohm taps which in parallel give you two ohms and see how the amp sounds. You might be surprised.

I think the power would drop to 27 watts on the 4 ohm tap driving 8 ohms (roughy) - in fact that is the way I use them with the Merlins - light loaded. Lower distortion, less stress on tubes, and more peak power for transients (not sure why, but Roger says it is so).

02-13-12: Mapman
If an amp is clipping, there is a good chance the sound quality is negatively affected well before any any clearly audible distortion is noticed. Better to have an amp that goes loud effortlessly to provide headroom before any clipping comes into play. One might be surprisec what is needed to do this for less efficient speakers. The difference can be subtle but very significant. With the exception of very efficient switching Class D amps, some weight and size is usually required.

Completely agree Mapman.

I am of the opinion that most audiophiles underestimate the amount of power they need.

30 watts of power might be adequate to reproduce music at average levels for a typical speaker /room, but musical peaks can require 10x average power.

Most audiophiles simply don't recognize when their amps are clipping. This is because the clipping usually only occurs on musical peaks where it is very transient, and does not occur at the average power level. Transient clipping is not recognized as clipping by most listeners because the average levels are relatively much longer than the peaks. Since the average levels aren't obviously distorted, the listeners think the amp is performing within its design parameters -- even when it is not...