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Your favorite "low-wattage" Amplifier or Receiver

malden

malden

Lunatic Member
As I was walking out of a thrift store with a cheap NAD amplifier which I had just purchased, a guy walking in pointed to it and said, "that's only 20 watts per channel". I just smiled and walked to my car.

Did he not approve of my foolish purchase or was he jealous?

Looking it up when I got home, he was close, 25 watts per channel. Also, it has a plastic face-plate and no "phono" section. Cheap indeed.

Not being excited by this "find", it sat on a shelf for months until it was once again time to swap amps/speakers/etc. in my cave. When I do so, I generally like to keep things somewhat period correct so I connected my NAD CD player and Polk 5jr speakers. It took some time to warm up to the sound and find a music genre that would make this system shine but once I did...WOW, how sweet this little set up sounds. For contemporary Jazz and Classical, this sounds better than my Marantz/JBL/Thorens setup in this small room.
 
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I don't own any NAD products but it seems like most I read online is favorable of the brand.
My personal favorite low watt is my Marantz 1060 factory rated at 30 watts per channel.
What's the cut off for being considered low watts? I have a couple receivers but in my mind they would be on the low end of mid powered at 38 and 40 watts per.

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malden said:
As I was walking out of a thrift store with a cheap NAD amplifier which I had just purchased, a guy walking in pointed to it and said, "that's only 20 watts per channel". I just smiled and walked to my car.

Did he not approve of my foolish purchase or was he jealous?

Looking it up when I got home, he was close, 25 watts per channel. Also, it has a plastic face-plate and no "phono" section. Cheap indeed.

Not being excited by this "find", it sat on a shelf for months until it was once again time to swap amps/speakers/etc. in my cave. When I do so, I generally like to keep things somewhat period correct so I connected my NAD CD player and Polk 5jr speakers. It took some time to warm up to the sound and find a music genre that would make this system shine but once I did...WOW, how sweet this little set up sounds. For contemporary Jazz and Classical, this sounds better than my Marantz/JBL/Thorens setup in this small room.
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Had a Sherwood s 7200 nice mellow tube sound at 20 wpc , also a sta64 at 16 wpc both were really made well and surprisingly musical
 
Reading this made me realize I don't have anything rated over 40 wpc at the moment.

My favorites:
Tube - Rotel single ended EL84 receiver, 4 wpc
SS - Sony HP-510A, 15 wpc combo receiver with a Dual 1216
DIY - TDA7297 chip amp, 8 wpc
 
malden said:
thanks.

I was thinking about looking for a C316EE, what is the "disc" input for? I'm assuming it's not a phono input
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The 316BEE was my first integrated amp after several Audio/Video receivers and it was a very noticeable improvement in sound quality. Although I have upgraded to separate amp and pre-amp, I am reluctant to let it go and might put in another room. Don't recall if I have used the DISC input. Here is what the owners manual says about the DISC input:

1 DISC INPUT: Input for additional line level input signals such as CD, Mini Disc player or the output signal from a step-up amplifier for a turntable. Use a twin RCA-to-RCA lead to connect the auxiliary unit’s left and right “Audio Outputs” to this input. NOTE If an external Media Player is connected to the front MP socket (using a 3.5mm stereo plug) while listening to a DISC line-level source, the external Media Player will be directly selected with the DISC line-level source immediately disconnected
 
triple20 said:
I don't own any NAD products but it seems like most I read online is favorable of the brand.
My personal favorite low watt is my Marantz 1060 factory rated at 30 watts per channel.
What's the cut off for being considered low watts? I have a couple receivers but in my mind they would be on the low end of mid powered at 38 and 40 watts per.

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Get a model 140 power amp and use the 1060 as a preamp for it. It's a nice combo. :music:
 

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My favorite flea watt amp is a 5.5wpc tube amp I built using TV sweep tubes. Driver and power tube in one bottle. I built a passive preamp with a phono preamp using using blank PCB's I had to source parts for.
This little amp and phono pre sound really nice.
 

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malden said:
As I was walking out of a thrift store with a cheap NAD amplifier which I had just purchased, a guy walking in pointed to it and said, "that's only 20 watts per channel". I just smiled and walked to my car.

Did he not approve of my foolish purchase or was he jealous?

Looking it up when I got home, he was close, 25 watts per channel. Also, it has a plastic face-plate and no "phono" section. Cheap indeed.

Not being excited by this "find", it sat on a shelf for months until it was once again time to swap amps/speakers/etc. in my cave. When I do so, I generally like to keep things somewhat period correct so I connected my NAD CD player and Polk 5jr speakers. It took some time to warm up to the sound and find a music genre that would make this system shine but once I did...WOW, how sweet this little set up sounds. For contemporary Jazz and Classical, this sounds better than my Marantz/JBL/Thorens setup in this small room.
Click to expand...
Just out of curiosity, what's the sensitivity rating for those speakers?
 
triple20 said:
I don't own any NAD products but it seems like most I read online is favorable of the brand.
My personal favorite low watt is my Marantz 1060 factory rated at 30 watts per channel.
What's the cut off for being considered low watts? I have a couple receivers but in my mind they would be on the low end of mid powered at 38 and 40 watts per.

View attachment 3426667
Click to expand...

tarior said:
I don't know what counts as low wattage, I suppose it's different for everybody.
For 25wpc or less, IMO, a Marantz 2015 or Harman/Kardon 430 are both pretty sweet. Naturally, as soon as I type this, a dozen more come to mind...
Click to expand...
Of course, I could be mistaken and I probably am. My understanding is that 50 wpc and lower is considered "low wattage", 51 to 150 is " medium" and above that is "high wattage". That's just what the general consensus SEEMS to be from what I understand. It's more a matter of opinion than fact.

All of the amps and receivers I recall having were 50 to 100 wpc. Optimus, Denon, Onkyo, and a pair of 80 watt monoblocks that someone gave me. I don't remember what brand the monoblocks were. They were kits.
 
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