Watt Gives?


Why does 75 Belles Watts smoke 250 watts from Anthem, PS Audio and W4S?

Not only do the Belles 75 watts play equally as loud, but it has the best bass texture, grip and slam, openess and top end...

Is this a case of 160hp on a 400lb motorcycle surpassing a 600 horsepower 4500lb in terms of acceleration?

I’d like to go up the ladder but I guess up isn’t always directly related to specs?

Really starting to question analogue / high efficiency, low powered beastly tubes...


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Showing 1 response by wspohn

  An amp's ability to deliver current, especially into 4 ohms and lower, is a better indicator of its performance with different speakers than its voltage rating!

Agree. I have always enjoyed using amps with big power supplies that can deal with very low impedance speakers (one of my favourites puts out only 40 watts into 8 ohms, but when bridged will put out 500 W into 1 ohm).

As it happens, I still own one of Belles rather rare amps, the 'Belles A' - I believe that he made less than 200 of them.  70 W output, but when asked about how low impedance it would drive into, supposedly commented along the lines that t would drive a clip wire (between the output  terminals). What I do know is that the turn on pulse welded a couple of switches together so I just used a commercial power bar to turn it on (and replaced the bar when it eventually failed).

Tube amps can't do that - but when they do clip, they do it more gracefully.