which is heavier a pound of nails or a pound of feathers? A watt is a watt no matter how you look at it. I would say what makes one amp sound more powerful has noting to do with wattage but frequency response.
"tube watts" versus "solid state watts"
I'm sure you, like me, have seen it written more than once that brand X tube amplifier, rated at 30WPC, sounded more powerful / more authoritative than brand Y solid state amplifier, also rated at 30WPC. Or that brand Z tube amp, only rated at 15W, was comfortably able to drive brand A speakers, because those 15 were tube watts and therefore up to the job. Heck, I think I've even heard the phenomenon with my own ears.
My question is: is there any basis in electrical engineering for this effect? Can we say scientifically what's going on here?
My question is: is there any basis in electrical engineering for this effect? Can we say scientifically what's going on here?
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My question is: is there any basis in electrical engineering for this effect? Can we say scientifically what's going on here? Yes we can. There are probably several factors that are involved, but I believe that the most significant one is that solid state amplifiers clip more abruptly than tube amplifiers. So that if the power capability of the amplifier is momentarily exceeded by a small or perhaps moderate amount, the resulting distortion will be much more noticeable on a solid state amp. Regards, -- Al |
Actually...a watt is current times voltage. It is unlikely that an amplifier will "run out" of voltage capability at the same time that it runs out of current capability. You could have an amplifier with low "rail" voltages that could deliver huge amperage at a low output voltage. This would, of course, be a waste because the amperage actually drawn is determined by the voltage and the impedance of the speaker. Similarly an amp might swing a high voltage into a light load, or for a brief time, but be limited in steady state performance by current delivery capability. Still, there are enough technical grounds to support an audiophile argument that a "tube watt" is better than a "SS watt". It doesn't take much technical ground to support an audiophile argument :-) |
2-left: this current thread (nopunintended) has some pretty good explanations and resources:http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?htech&1235758642&openmine&zzNsgarch&4&5#Nsgarch |
A Watt is a Watt. Beyond that my hyper technical response is . The measure of an amp of either tube or SS is how much it weighs. The question of where the watt is generated lies somewhere in the transformers . This is of great importance to the success of a tube Amp not the wattage. Indeed the better SS Amp has an enormous power trannie. In fact they weigh a lot if you aren't speaking of those wimpy on/off Chip amps. I will hold my opinions about the chip amp to myself. So when looking for an amp first decide if you prefer a tube or SS amp by listening to both and ignore all this nonsense about the difficult nature of tube amps, it is pure B.S. Then buy the heaviest one you can afford, and please forget the watts. |
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