I own a set of Dahlquist DQ10s....a notoriously hard to drive speaker. Before I bought them, did some research. Everyone kept saying, "you need at LEAST 200 watts to drive them". I had no desire to purchase one of those arc welding, heat producing monsters. Then a technician with 40 years in the field chimed in and told me he's owned 4 sets of the 10s at various times. Told me the best performing and sounding amp he'd heard them paired with was a Proton D540.....40 watts wpc. It has a feature called Dynamic Power on Demand. NAD has a version of the same feature called Power Envelope. The Proton has reserve power of 160 wpc.......and that's at 8ohms. It will drive down to 2ohm loads. 6db of headroom. I had been listening with a Yamaha at 90 wpc but the Proton f'n blew that Yamaha away. I'm like you and don't like listening loud. I'm not sure what class amp the Proton is but the 10s sound glorious! The whole watts thing is b/s.....
How many watts??
If I have a 80 watt stereo amp and I normally listen at quarter volume and never play at levels higher than this. Do I really need 80 watts could I use a 15 watt amp at half volume?
My next question if I have speakers that my mfg states needs min 50 watts to really make them sound good with my current amp rated at 80 watts but played at qtr volume does that mean I am not really getting the best from these speakers. If I play at half volume this is too loud, do I need a bigger room. Sorry if I did not explain clearly enough.
My next question if I have speakers that my mfg states needs min 50 watts to really make them sound good with my current amp rated at 80 watts but played at qtr volume does that mean I am not really getting the best from these speakers. If I play at half volume this is too loud, do I need a bigger room. Sorry if I did not explain clearly enough.