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Are vintage watts the same as modern watts

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Doug G. said:
A watt is a watt. It all depends on test parameters and whether the manufacturer cheats or not.

Doug
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Actually, no, not in this situation. If you understand the differences between the FTC testing regimen and actual speaker demands, you get a far more accurate view of the world. When I did stand up trainings I would often as "what's faster, an Indy car or an F150?" Of course, everyone jumped on the Indy car bandwagon. I would follow with "off road". Game changed.
The answer to the OP's question is that the old Marantz amplifiers were designed to address real world speaker loads, the new product is designed to look good on the FTC power tests. Part of the downfall of the industry.
 
hopeless said:
Actually, no, not in this situation. If you understand the differences between the FTC testing regimen and actual speaker demands, you get a far more accurate view of the world. When I did stand up trainings I would often as "what's faster, an Indy car or an F150?" Of course, everyone jumped on the Indy car bandwagon. I would follow with "off road". Game changed.
The answer to the OP's question is that the old Marantz amplifiers were designed to address real world speaker loads, the new product is designed to look good on the FTC power tests. Part of the downfall of the industry.
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Closest answer to what I am looking for ...:-)
 
Okay , some really good answers here. Perhaps I am describing the issue incorrectly and maybe mixing apples and Watts ...LOL

Take system 1 - 20wpc
Marantz 2220B - running 4 speakers at the same time - 2 X Pioneer HPM 100's (200 watt version) and 2 X JBL Studio 530's - Marantz drives them effortlessly and yes, I have to go by a volume control because position wise , without distortion normal listening 1/4 way and 1/2 way is Blazing ..LOL...Dont even know what 3/4 would be

System 2 - 80wpc
Maranrz SR4023 - running two speakers - JBL Studio 190 (Was polk Monitor 70's before). 1/4 volume is almost silent, 1/2 is normal 3/4 is loud loud and I dont take it further but it no way has the same punch (I know different speakers ) and it seems like if I swapped the speakers from system 1 it would struggle

So really I understand about rated DB , ohms, all the jazz on speakers specs, yada yada and in many ways comparing apples to oranges so the real test will be
Move the Marantz 2220B to system 2
See if its better
If it is better than old watts are better than new watts (kidding,,,just like to get my fellow AK'ers ruffled )
 
Yup. A watt is a watt is a watt.

Where things go off the rails is when the marketing dept gets a hold of the specs and scans it for the biggest number they can slap on the outside of the box.

I find the car audio field is the worst offender. You pick up a subwoofer and it may say "1200 watts!" or "1500 watts!" in big numbers on the box. Then you read down the small print on the side and find that's a "peak" number and the RMS watts are only 500 or 600....I find the practice of doing that "deceptive" at best, "greasy" at worst. But it's not false advertising, so they get around the laws with a little "creative" marketing....
 
IMO, speaker ratings are nuts. Ever see a 500 watt halogen lamp or photoflood? The ones that will burn you a foot away? Do you really think a speaker voice coil could dissipate that much heat for any length of time? And don't tell me it goes out as sound- the best speakers are only a few percent efficient.
 
gadget73 said:
Depends if we're talking SAE watts, Imperial watts or metric watts. 1 SAE is 0.83 Imperial and 1.6 metric. Then there is the marine watt, which is 1.15 SAE watts. This is why boat stereos are so loud.
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This is all great and stuff, but it still tells you nothing about how an amplifier can drive a speaker load. They are lab test numbers that don't mean a lot in the real world.
How much power could a mid-90s Sony receiver feed into a set of Bose AM10s? 0 watts after the first bout of moderate dynamics. But, in the lab on resistors it was good for 125. How did that number help the unfortunate consumer?
 
hopeless said:
This is all great and stuff, but it still tells you nothing about how an amplifier can drive a speaker load. They are lab test numbers that don't mean a lot in the real world.
How much power could a mid-90s Sony receiver feed into a set of Bose AM10s? 0 watts after the first bout of moderate dynamics. But, in the lab on resistors it was good for 125. How did that number help the unfortunate consumer?
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well that also may require a JIS to DIN conversion. Sometimes its the same, sometimes not.


I do hope its obvious I'm just being a smartass here. To actually reply though, no, measurements don't completely tell us how something sounds. Its just a measurement. If we know what conditions that measurement was made under, we can compare stated specs to the unit on the bench to verify it meets its design spec. We can even measure two units under the same conditions to see how they compare, but its not exactly a complete picture. It is however the only objective comparison we can make. What I think sounds better is possibly different than what you think sounds better, and thats the part that actually matters. The cool part though, we don't have to agree on what sounds better because we aren't listening with each other's ears.
 
The discussion on old watts versus new watts is great but the simpler explanation for the apparent power difference could be that the input sensitivity for the two receivers in question is different. One will output more power from the same input level than the other. The standard CD output level of 2VRMS will make the receiver with the higher input sensitivity seem more powerful.
 
ConradH said:
IMO, speaker ratings are nuts. Ever see a 500 watt halogen lamp or photoflood? The ones that will burn you a foot away? Do you really think a speaker voice coil could dissipate that much heat for any length of time? And don't tell me it goes out as sound- the best speakers are only a few percent efficient.
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Power ratings of consumer speakers are mostly irrelevant. Ratings for commercial speakers (e.g. used for sound reinforcement) are not, and engineers have to keep them in mind when designing systems. And bear in mind that even in sound reinforcement, if you have a 500 watt amp connected to a speaker, you're not putting anywhere close to 500 watts into the speaker the majority of the time. It's probably more like 50 watts steady power, and the extra 90% is for peaks (remember that 10 times the power only gets you an additional 10dB, an audible doubling of output). 50 watts is still a lot of power, but commercial speakers have high mass frames and sometimes heat sinks.
 
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arcorob said:
Okay , some really good answers here. Perhaps I am describing the issue incorrectly and maybe mixing apples and Watts ...LOL

Take system 1 - 20wpc
Marantz 2220B - running 4 speakers at the same time - 2 X Pioneer HPM 100's (200 watt version) and 2 X JBL Studio 530's - Marantz drives them effortlessly and yes, I have to go by a volume control because position wise , without distortion normal listening 1/4 way and 1/2 way is Blazing ..LOL...Dont even know what 3/4 would be

System 2 - 80wpc
Maranrz SR4023 - running two speakers - JBL Studio 190 (Was polk Monitor 70's before). 1/4 volume is almost silent, 1/2 is normal 3/4 is loud loud and I dont take it further but it no way has the same punch (I know different speakers ) and it seems like if I swapped the speakers from system 1 it would struggle

So really I understand about rated DB , ohms, all the jazz on speakers specs, yada yada and in many ways comparing apples to oranges so the real test will be
Move the Marantz 2220B to system 2
See if its better
If it is better than old watts are better than new watts (kidding,,,just like to get my fellow AK'ers ruffled )
Click to expand...
System 1 vs System 2
Not a fair test as different receivers and different speakers are involved. In other words two totally different systems.

Plus you ARE using the volume control position to make the case one is better than the other. Plenty of posts on AK about volume position and what it means and more importantly what it doesn't mean.
 
But the difference between a Citation rated at less than 1 % but was a 2 to 5% amp at 20 and 20,000 watts doesn't come close to a 275 Mcintosh rated at .5% but actually put out 75 watts at ,04% at 1000 HZ, less than .19 % at 20 and 20,000 hz. It would also put out over 90 watts at less than .5 % rated distortion. So a 275 was effective twice as power as a 60 watt Citation at Mcintosh 75 watt specs. Amps like Fisher, Scott, Sherwood . and Pilot never met Mac specs unless operating around 1 watt. Which was fine if you had Cornwalls or Klipsch horns. But if you had AR-3a or Bozak Concert Grands you needed the full 90 watts. I always want 6 to10 db of head room even above peaks and is why I use MC 207's with my concert Grands and MC 830 to drive my XRT 28's.
 
goodolpg said:
System 1 vs System 2
Not a fair test as different receivers and different speakers are involved. In other words two totally different systems.

Plus you ARE using the volume control position to make the case one is better than the other. Plenty of posts on AK about volume position and what it means and more importantly what it doesn't mean.
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I hear what you are saying ..but please understand, I am not a noob. I am trying to point out there is a distinct difference in OOMPF on my 6 vintage amp (all rated at 30wpc or less) than the supposed 80wpc modern amp. So what I amy be finding is the Marantz SR4023 may just have inflated numbers. I'll report back when I do the swap and compare :-)
 
maybe it's that the 4023 is only rated to 40hz and the 2220b is rated to 20hz so you aren't hearing the "oompf" on the 4023

and since you are so concerned about the position of the volume control, the 2220b uses a potentiometer and the 4023 uses a rotary switch.

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I remember in the mid to late 70s noticing that you generally could not go past about 11 o'clock. Anything after that started distorting. It used to drive me nuts. This was before I had ever tried any standalone units(power amp/preamp). It was almost universal with receivers, and as a student, that was mostly what I heard. I saw the same thing when I got back into vintage audio about 10 years ago. Distortion hurts my ears, so I am very sensitive to it.

The problem is that congress was lobbied to remove FTC standards on audio equipment, and then we all lost a benchmark. It wasn't the best, but it was better than what we have now. So I no longer use specs because as far as I am concerned, they don't mean anything. I'm stuck using my ears, and perhaps an SPL tool like on my iphone. I find my ears are pretty good for that, but I have noticed that everyone hears differently. I'll never forget trying out a pair of Paisley speakers being driven by an HK 20 WPC amp. I had pretty well decided to buy the speakers when the seller looked at me, grinned, and then cranked that HP almost to the max. I was out of my chair, turned down the volume, and negotiating with him before he could do anything worse. He thought they sounded great, and all I could hear was distortion!
 
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