Too Much Power

They ever a showman Bob Carvar did a video once showed the power required to reproduce the sound of a pair of scissors doing one big snip. I think it was a short transient of 1,000 watts. Anything less clipped.

But that is the point of massive power… not in plying loud but delivering enormous current for short durations so not to compress the music. I have usually owned amps of twice the maximum power handling capability of my speakers. They always sounded better because of it. Typically with a real high current amp you have to turn the volume up less to sound satisfying.

The power rating of 600 wpc into 8 ohms and 1200 wpc into 4 ohms is the mark of a good quality amp… as far as power. Also, there is no such thing as too much power…. Assuming you don’t crank up a little set of speakers to ridiculous volumes.

However, there is a question of the sound quality of the amp… each amp type independent of power has a character (design type and importantly the designer)... is that the character you want? For me, high quality tube amps give me the quality of sound that I want. So, it would be hard to afford an amp with that much power… on the other hand, my amp produces 140wpc in linear mode and 70 wpc in triode mode. My Sonus Faber Amati Traditional sound best with the lower 70 wpc triode power.

So, as far as an amp… the character of the sound is most important… then, more power is better.