are all amps equal


I have recently gotten the Mcintosh bug, but a friend of my who does a LOT or reading on the net says power output is the answer not the name. I am looking for the best sound I can get in the 3k$ range for my Usher Be 718s. I have looked at many used Mcintosh units in the 200 watt plus output area, but my friend says a new 250 watt Emotiva would be a better value. The Emotiva is around $800.
I would like some imput.. Thanks, Don
keslerd

Showing 1 response by kirkus

Kijanki, I'm definately with you on this one . . . an interesting comparison is the differnces between these conduction-angles and time-constants between tube and solid-state amps. Tube amps have lossier power transformers, (sometimes) tube rectifiers, C-L-C or L-C filtering (and more RC for the small-signal stages) . . . which all seems to have the effect of making the filtering time constants much longer than a typical SS amp - in both directions.

Then there's another little detail that is so often ignored - the fact that the vast majority of "DC coupled" solid-state amps are in fact capacitively coupled . . . Kirchhoff's law says the AC ground current from the speaker has to go somewhere, so it returns through the main filter capacitors. It's just that they're in the feedback loop all the way to DC that makes DC offset possible at the output, thus making it "DC coupled".