2. amps-preamps
  3. 1038620469

Riddle me this...

Why is it that you cannot seem to purchase a lower-powered solid state amp any more? None of the “names” in solid state amps seem to make any reasonably priced or powered products at all, and most haven’t since about the early 90s. (A few come to mind right off, Levinson no. 29, Rowland Model 1, Krell KSA-80, the family of Pass Alephs). These days, the most modest offering from any of these companies (not to mention everyone else) is many times more expensive, in no small part due to the fact that they are all many times more powerful.

Question is, why? Why should I need 250wpc+ to drive any reasonably designed speaker? What is it about the industry that seems to be in a conspiracy (or, at least, conscious parallelism, for you antitrust geeks) to foist more and more power on the consuming public while, at the same time, doubling or tripling prices for their most modest gear? Why is it that, if I want a really nice amp at less than 100wpc, I have to either go with tubes or with gear that was made at least a decade ago? Why is it that most speakers made these days are either “tube friendly” or “require” an amp with enough power to light a small village to actually go?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got inefficient speakers and a 250wpc amp which I like the sound of just fine. It just strikes me as preposterous that I (and we, if I may speak for the market) seem to have been conditioned to believe that this is necessary. Why on Earth wouldn’t someone get a reasonably designed, efficient pair of speakers and, say, a Pass Aleph amp for a negligible fraction of ANYTHING built by Pass these days and never look back? I understand there are plenty of legit reasons why more power can be desirable (“never can have too much” yea, yea, I know), but am a bit miffed that, legit reasons or no, the market no longer seems to offer choices. We a bunch of suckers, or what? (Yea, a bit of a rant, but this has been bugging me -- am I the only one? Did I miss something? Can I get a witness?)
mezmo

Showing 4 responses by maxgain

maxgain
526 posts
 
I am with Bigtee on the smaller amps often having a magic that the big amps don't. I used to love the old ARC D51 as an example. I love my current 45 watt ARC amp and have no desire to go bigger. With the right speaker or some careful system planning there would never be a need for a big 200 watt monster. On the other side of the coin there are things out there like MG 20's and big stats that I have always loved, that want more juice than my VT50 can feed em.
maxgain
526 posts
 
Sean makes a good point, but it seems to me that high speaker efficiency, trumps big watt amps. Just from a mathamatical standpoint. I may have missed it in the thread but has everyone forgotten the recent popularity of tiny, flea size output, SET amps and speakers with 100+ db sensitivity ratings? It seems to me that an 8 watt amp with this sort of speaker could be used as a weapon! Don't get me wrong, what ever works. It's always a system. How you get where you want to go seems to take many different paths in this hobby.
maxgain
526 posts
 
Trelja, I will try to be more "accurate" in my descriptions, but language is a plyable sort of thing sometimes. It looks to me that we agree much more than we disagree. For one thing we are both in the tube camp. I want amps to have the least sound of their own that is possible,I guess that is what I mean when I say "accurate". As an exapmle, I have worked for ARC dealerships and Conrad dealerships and have owned both. Both are wonderful but different. I just seem to lean tword the ARC house sound if you will. For me the sound of the VT series amp that I own is just about ideal. One the other hand one of the best and what I would consider reference quality systems for the era I have had the pleasure of spending alot of time with used a Premier One and a Three. I used a Premier Three and Four in my own system for some time.Funny thing is for me that my system does more of what that Conrad reference system did right than ever before.(I will state a preference for Vandersteens as well over anything else I have heard)
I have been working for the past year to get rid of some of what to me were colorations(for lack of a better or more accurate phrase) in my system that I felt were perhaps "romantic". We may have a different idea of what that sound is? I have gotten closer to "my" ideal sound than ever before by working these out of the sound. It is more realistic to me. which is my only benchmark as to if my system sounds good. If it can fool me for even a bit into thinking I am there with the live event keeps me listening.

I have been a tube guy since my brother came home from UofM with a Dynaco ST70 and an ARC SP3a1, while I was still in High School in about 75,listening to my Marantz 1060. I toyed with the idea of getting an ARC tatoo,just like the sweaty Harley guys, to give you a look into where I am coming from.
maxgain
526 posts
 
Trelja, I don't understand the second paragraph of your second post at all? If you want romance read a cheap novel. If you want to reproduce a musical event in the most accurate way it seems obvious that as tube and SS designs improve(become more accurate or faithful to the original event,i.e. High Fidelity) that they will and do sound more similar to one another. The idea that some good tube amps(yes you pushed a button here as I own one of the amps you are putting down with this statement) are trying to imulate SS sound bewilders me. ARC is doing their best to make an amp that sounds "realistic", not some coloration to make them sound like solid state. They may not be your cup of tea, as you state your preference for "romantic" colorations over realism. I'm not saying that there is no room here for variations in taste. You only need to read a few of the posters systems listed and look at the daunting number of audio products available today to see that we all seem to have different ideas of what is accurate or even musical. About a year ago I had an old Dynaco PAS 2 that I dug out if the basement and stuck my stash of old, lightly used Amperex 12Ax7's in it, and hooked it up to the Dyna ST 70(also a very nice tube set with NOS 7199's and Svetlana EL34's) that I had updated for my Nephew. Talk about romantic and musical! This combo was great fun to listen to, but it was a musical event all of it's own making. It was big and deep and lush, but not what I would call accurate.Give me back my "SS sounding" ARC amp any day! Like I said it was fun and had a beauty that was unmistakeable but it didn't sound very realistic in so many ways. I don't want a tube amp or any other amp that sounds "like" a Krell or a Levinson, myself. I want an amp of any design that sounds like live music. That may be a foolish "romantic" notion.
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