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Power output of tube amps compared to solid states

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how tube amp power output relates to solid state power output. I've been looking at the classifieds for tube amps and I see lots of tube amps with 50w or 60w output, but nothing close to the 250w output typical of solid state amps.

So I have no idea what type of tube amp is required for my set up, right now I'm using totem forests with a required power rating of 150w-200w at 8ohms. The bass is so powerful on these that I have the sub crossover set to 40hz.

My question is, are tube amps so efficient that 50w from a tube sounds like 150w from a solid state? Or will 50w output from a tube severely limit how loud I can play my speakers? If so, are tubes usually meant to be driving super-high efficiency speakers?

I had previously tried a tube pre-amp with a solid state power amp (both musical fidelity) and didn't like the results because the imaging suffered greatly, even though the music sounded nicer from a distance. Now I want to try a solid state pre-amp (bryston) with a tube power amp (no idea which brand to look at), but I don't know how much power output I need or if it will even be possible with my speakers. Does anyone know what I would require?
acrossley

Showing 1 response by myles_b_astor

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myles_b_astor
134 posts
 
@Ralph:

Found you comment about the MBL101e's interesting. Years ago, Michael Gindi had the original MBL, and the best sound I've ever heard from the MBL101. It was I think in part a large function of the size and dimensions of his room blending in with an omnidirectional speaker.

Now Michael had used several tube amps quite happily in those days with the MBLs including Ken Stevens original tube amps as well as the Jadis JA-500. Neither sounded shrill but one could still hear the sonic siggie of each amp.

Also, the impedance of estats drops too--as with my Martin Logans--to around 1 ohm or so in the upper octaves. Yet, the cj tube amps have always worked quite well with the ML (and I've tried many other ss and tube amps with them) despite their obviously not being able to increase power as the impedance drops (and there's the case of Quad 63 that sounded great with Futterman OTL because their impedance went up).

Cheers,

Myles
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