Watt nonsense!

[62caddy]

I still can't agree with its conclusion though.

My opinion is simply that many hi fi 'believers' don't want to agree because it would undermine their entire belief system while others don't harbor any such illusions and realize there are no absolutes in this game. Anyone who, for example, has it in his mind that an amplifier etc costing $x will be automatically, unquestionably, irrevocably & de facto audibly inferior than others costing $5x, 10x or 20x... is going to be seriously disappointed- as a number of 'believers' in the S/R study found out.

That is NOT to say there was a time in the early days of hi fi when a lot of lousy equipment was being produced to such an extent that it was audibly obvious to most anyone with decent listing abilities. But the simple fact of the matter is that technology has pretty much reduced performance disparity between expensive and moderate cost equipment to a minute order of magnitude - just as it had, for example, in the timepiece industry where today a watch costing a few dollars can keep time as well as others costing many, many times as much. The extra cost goes toward the quality, workmanship, materials, precious metals etc but these contribute nothing to the utilitarian function of keeping time accurately. Pretty much the same principle applies to audio gear.

 

[Mearle]

I like this thread because it is not only quite subjective in nature but it has grown to ALSO encompass many of the key ingredients in the recipe to cumulatively produce a nice AUDIO "soup" including reserve power aspect, speaker sensitivity, crossover's, input signal, and the ambiguous "matching" of components and the result. The subject matter is finally topped off with some good old salt and pepper of basic audio electronic facts to season to taste. It seems apparent that the subjective nature of the topic and personal listening taste along with some facts will be the end outcome of the discussion. That being said, I have learned some new and interesting view points from the thread. Personally I invested in a scope and I bench test all my amps so I can SEE it with my own eyes before putting them into service. I drive it right to the very peak so it removes any subjective opinions or even published specifications. Below Crown 1000hz into 8 ohms.

 

[DavidTT]

Within reason and with speakers at or above 90db sensitivity, I've used tube amps as low as 8wpc without issues at normal listening levels. I've driven high-sensitivity speakers with 3.5 wpc. I've gone as high as 200wpc and any number of amps in between, and at my typical listening levels have never wanted for MO POWER. I'm currently using a 100wpc power amp with a passive pre and never get much beyond noon to one o'clock on the volume dial, and that's with large floor standers playing very loud.

Some users just want to have more power, some listen to dynamically demanding music, some use very low sensitivity speakers. For any of my use cases, 100wpc is more than I'll ever want or need and I could probably be just fine with 35wpc all things considered.

 

[Tom Brennan]

Dynamic compression in speakers must be considered; many speakers run out gas by 100db and won't get much louder no matter how much power you feed them. Compression also often causes tonal change as woofers often run out of gas before tweeters, thus making the speaker brighter as it gets louder.

In my experience the best way to get high volume is to have highly efficient speakers that are also capable of high output (some high efficiency speakers aren't) and then, with the power monkey now off your back, use an amplifier based on it's sonic qualities, not its power. Like a nice 10 wpc EL 84 amp. Or a 2 watt amp using RCA 45s--those are SO sweet.