Precisely. If your chosen speaker is just a little hard to drive at certain frequencies, all bets are off. You will need a much more capable amplifier to maintain sound quality. Even my 60 and 70 watt amplifiers tend to run around 40 lbs.
Is high power a waste at low to medium volume?
- Thread starter NW1
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BradV
Active Member
Spark you seem to be trying to be sarcastic. It's fairly obvious to everyone that I'm referring to volume control with the output gain which every power amplifier has.
BradV
Active Member
All power amplifiers to my knowledge have gain controls which for individual channels so it works as an output volume control.
The bias that is available by varying preamp output and power amplifier output relative to each other in a way that overcomes any of the possible issues that big powerful amplifiers have at lower volume levels.
Agreed; who really needs hundreds of watts extra just laying around doing nothing but taking up space
?
Good effort lol !
knotscott
Super Member
Power rating is a poor indicator of sound quality, and a poor indicator of how well an amp will actually handle the complex impedance challenges of a given speaker. All watts are not created equal, and they sound different on a high res system. Regardless of the power rating, how the amp sounds is a variable, and is subjective. I've gone from 55wpc Technics receiver, to 70wpc Yamaha A-500 integrated, to 255wpc Hafler amp, to 150 wpc NYAL Moscode amp, to 100 wpc to Distech LS-2 amp, to 35 wpc Dynaco, to 17 wpc Dynaco/VTA in triode, and each progression was an improvement IMO.
The current 17 wpc can't play as loud as the Hafler did, but it is so much clearer and more pleasant to listen to at all but party volumes.
The current 17 wpc can't play as loud as the Hafler did, but it is so much clearer and more pleasant to listen to at all but party volumes.
What it really comes down to is what works for you. To say that you don't really need a powerful amp or your low power amp isn't adequate is just a reason to dismiss what works for someone else because it's not the way you do it. If it's working it doesn't matter what anyone else says.
lini
just me...
Output impedance may be (even) lower, which can have audible benefits - foremost tighter/better controlled bass.
Greetings from Munich!
Manfred / lini
It's quite common for power amplifiers aimed at the pro market to feature a control for each channel, but strictly speaking they're input trim controls, ie they're just a pot at the input. They don't actually alter the voltage gain of the power amp.
Power amps aimed at the domestic market rarely have any controls on them.
Dan13105
Well-Known Member
That is what my JBL/Urei 6290 amp has. 2 power switches and 2 knobs (since it's dual mono) marked Db attenuation on the face. I just leave them turned to just under max and use the preamp for volume control. I bought this amp because I needed something that can handle occasional 1.1 Ohm loads from my Acoustats, and would be able to drive pretty much any speaker since I am still holding out hope for a set of Kappa 9s to pop up for cheap near me. I went with the doubling of power when impedance is halved theory, (from 8 Ohms at 300W to 600W at 4 Ohms). It sounds good on all my speakers, even if it's just idling along while pushing my 102 Db efficient ones. It's no Krell, and definitely won't win any beauty contests, but it specs and sounds very good, and is the definition of overbuilt. The outputs are only run at about 25-35% of rated power, for reliability. However I think if I didn't need the bigger amp for the hard to drive electrostats, I would have been perfectly happy with the 32W my Sansui 771 puts out into my more efficient speakers. I look at more power for me as opening up more speaker options and extra safety margin with headroom, but needs vary from person to person
On a pure power amp, they're not volume controls, per se, but rather level controls, setting how much input power is needed to drive the amp to its full capability. They're mostly a feature of pro amps, but my Soundcraftsmen A2502 has both level controls and LED meters, like a pro amp, but RCA inputs, and 5-way binding posts for speakers, like a home audio model.
BradV
Active Member
One thing to note is the design differences between low and high powered amplifiers. In most cases they are not the same. Power supply aside. Higher powered amps because being more expensive the designers and bean counters can afford to use better circuit designs and components. Technically there is no reason the circuit designs can’t be the same apart from power supply voltages, capacity etc. This also applies the line level circuit designs in receivers and integrated amplifiers as well.
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Funny - I remember my father having a conversation about that with some other guys when I was a kid
I have 2 that do. 1 Class A and a Class D.
True. The issue seems to come when even well designed amps are tested in ways to game the system and produce ratings that may not always translate to real life situations
Gigantic
A big, big love
I have 7 at the moment. Three class A/B and 4 class D; 6 of them are mono blocks, 2 professional amps with balanced bridgeable mono and the class D offer balanced mono, but not bridged.
In my case that analogy does work for explaining, to my wife, why it's good to crank up the volume, occasionally. We've been together so long that she remembers a number of our carbureted V8's that needed some gear-winding after extended city driving. Now I'll tell her the KT-120's plates are getting carboned-up and the amp needs to spend some time at high volume.