Watts are highly overrated and misunderstood. Even listening at fairly high levels with relatively inefficient speakers the vast majority of the time is only some fraction of a watt. Its the peaks that call for power and its the ability to deliver during those peaks that determines our sense of power more than any measurement. The proof is in your experience, which is the same as mine, and matches a whole lot of others who have tried and compared. This is all boiled down in the adage that tube watts are greater than SS watts.
In fact not even all tube watts are created equal, and its the transformer more so than the tubes that are responsible for this. Spend a little time researching Prima Luna or Raven tube integrated amps. Read the comments and reviews on my System. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367
That Melody is a 50 wpc tube amp. Before that was a 60 wpc Aronov tube amp. Both drove the same Talon speakers with more authority, volume, dynamics and bass than a 150 wpc SS McCormack DNA1, which is one very highly regarded SS amp. I had one, I know, as SS amps go it is truly great. As SS amps go. Tube amps are simply in another class. Its like CD, there are some really fine ones. Not ones you want to put up against a record, but good for what they are.
The plain fact of the matter is you get a really good tube integrated and how many watts it makes is just about the least relevant thing you could possibly measure. If you like what you're hearing what do you care what some other guy who you never met and will never hear your system thinks?
Look at it this way- a beautiful 150 wpc MCCormack DNA1 amp. Does not sound as good as either of 2 tube amps 1/3 as powerful. Obviously power is not all its cracked up to be. Or as Robert Harley famously said, "If the first watt isn't any good, why would you want 200 more of them?"
In fact not even all tube watts are created equal, and its the transformer more so than the tubes that are responsible for this. Spend a little time researching Prima Luna or Raven tube integrated amps. Read the comments and reviews on my System. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367
That Melody is a 50 wpc tube amp. Before that was a 60 wpc Aronov tube amp. Both drove the same Talon speakers with more authority, volume, dynamics and bass than a 150 wpc SS McCormack DNA1, which is one very highly regarded SS amp. I had one, I know, as SS amps go it is truly great. As SS amps go. Tube amps are simply in another class. Its like CD, there are some really fine ones. Not ones you want to put up against a record, but good for what they are.
The plain fact of the matter is you get a really good tube integrated and how many watts it makes is just about the least relevant thing you could possibly measure. If you like what you're hearing what do you care what some other guy who you never met and will never hear your system thinks?
Look at it this way- a beautiful 150 wpc MCCormack DNA1 amp. Does not sound as good as either of 2 tube amps 1/3 as powerful. Obviously power is not all its cracked up to be. Or as Robert Harley famously said, "If the first watt isn't any good, why would you want 200 more of them?"