Is powerfull Amps only for low sensitivity speakes?

We'll start with i design amps - and have done some in hgih end commercially.

Your question is a little bit vague, os let me re-pose it two ways:

1. Is the primary benefit of powerful amps the ability to drive inefficient or power hungry (big room, big capability) speakers?  Yes.

2. Is there any *disadvantage* to powerful amps with efficient or small speakers?  No.

There is nothing about a powerful amp that is inherently a compromise of sound for power except for one thing: the cost of a big transformer, many transistors, and heat-sinks necessary for big power.  So in that sense there *is*  a trade off; yet in those many-$1000 power amps, no such trade off has been made.

I have built my primary design in two formats:  low power class-A (almost) and high power class A/AB, using nearly the same parts. They sound very similar, until one runs out of power and either clips or compresses. But that usually happens after my ears or the speakers are in distress.

Let's look at the flip side: modest power on large full-range speakers.  I currently drive huge, 89 dB efficiency speakers (Mahlers if you care, very fussy) with the 60 wpc version with no problem. Most would select a higher power amp.  I see no need, even though 3-4 are lying there idling, free for my use

So, within reason, select simply the best sounding amp.  Also remember that there is more to "power" than rater power into an 8-ohm resistive load. Most speakers are FAR from an 8-ohm resistive load, and it may take some serious muscle to control them.  That means low output impedance and ability to drive high current into a load that might drop to 2-ohms., or in many cases (read this carefully: negative impedance for  a brief moment when the voice coil is traveling backwards). Electro magnets work both ways :-)  And speakers are electro-magnets at their core.

Funny, on my moprning run, before reading your note, i was thinking about the best price/performance way to build a great, low cost (ok, maybe < $1000, so not that low), low power amp.

Happy listening.

G

Kalali writes:

"An additional point against using high powered SS amps driving extra efficient speakers is most SS amplifiers produce higher levels of undesirable (higher odd order) distortion within their first watt or two just like but not quite as much as when they are pushed near their clipping limit."

This was - maybe sometimes still is - the problem with solid state amps and "lets drive the THD to zero" thinking. And yes, he is right withe the fundamental observation - tube amps naturally distort in a musical way; solid state tends to distort in a less musically way; but that is less a function of the devices than of how they are applied in a circuit. Honestly, that was all figured out and mostly mitigated decades ago. I even wrote papers on little pieces of how. So amps that behave that way are of the class of "bad amps designed by people who should have known better". A good solid state amp should have few nasty harmonics today. I’m frankly amazed at how far we have come in about 35 years. Heck, there are pretty decent sounding OPAMPS (!) today. really, again if you know how to use them (which most people don’t).

I'll also note that there is an implicit assumption that the amp is running in class-B mode, which, again, should never be the case for a serious high-end amp. It should run class-A for atlas a little bit (and after that don't bother me with subtleties, they are drowned out) :-)

Admittedly if you want bog power and low cost, it will sound like garbage, but that’s a COST issue, not a technical one. As I said above, the only problem with a big powerful amp is that you must spend money on that power and therefore didn’t spend it elsewhere.

Its easy to design "cost no object" pieces that are so impressive. Its much harder to make a great $1000 amp or whatever.

G

Someone wrote:
"These statements are not accurate. If the amp makes too much power and the speaker has no need for it, the amp will be operating in a lower power region. With most higher power amps, this means it will have increased distortion. You can see this in their specs. The increased distortion is audible as brightness in most cases and will result in less detail as the distortion will mask lower level signals."

Not True! I wont even start here. I will ask you to think about percentages and hwo the FTC requires amps to be measured.