How could 100 Watt class a has more head room than a 300 Watt amp Class AB


Put aside which brand or make.
I put two amps into a test, both highend amp came from the same manufacturer.
Both double down the power with half of the impedance load, and THD is about the same.
Regardless of the size and cost difference, from a pure science perspective.
300 watt in theory should provide more headroom and sound ease when it reaches 100db, but the reverse is the true, the class A 100 watt seems to provide more headroom.
I have tried to use another set of speakers which is much easier to drive and it reaches the same conclusion.
Can someone explain why?
Quality or quantity of watt, how do we determined?
samnetw

Showing 2 responses by timlub

There are a few examples...So as far as Headroom.... First an 100 watt amp that is true pure Class A amplifier won't play louder than a 300 watt A/B amp... Pure Class A means that it will not switch out of Class A from First Watt until clipping.... So the amp is a Class A amplifier... In this sense,  A  100 watt vs a 300 watt amp is a no brainer as far as how loud it will play...The 300 watt will have 6db more headroom. On the other hand,  there are several amps today that are sliding Class A,  They are biased to run Class A for a percentage of their output.  Threshold and Coda did this quite a bit.... I think of the Aleph 3 or 30,  they are rated at 30 watts class a, but in reality are more like 125 watts or so,  but they play their first 30 watts in Class A before switching to A/B, after 30 watts they play the balance of their power in A/B. 
I hope this helps,  Tim
@elevick 
You are correct,  I just threw out 6db because of going from 100 to 300, but yes, you would need 400 watts for the EXTRA  6db of headroom.
I do disagree to some degree on not telling the difference.  Not necessarily but could be.... I have heard a 40 watt amp that had a huge power supply that was so dynamic that if you had fairly sensitive speakers that you would easily believe that the amp was a lot of power... On the other hand,  regardless of power supply.  If you had a very low sensitivity speaker,  say 82 to 84 db and you liked listening at a decent level, ALLTHINGS BEING EQUAL  you wouldn't be hard pressed at all telling the difference between 100 watts and 300 watts. Of course, you didn't say all things being equal and I do agree that overall, I would prefer a 100 watt Pure Class A amp to a 300 watt mediocre Class A/B