Watts! How many do we need?


Got a new amp. Accuphase P-4600. It’s great. I love it. 
150 watts into 8 ohms, 300 watts into 4 ohms and it has meters so I can see wattage. Have them set on freeze so I can see the highest wattage during the session.

My Harbeth speakers are not very efficient. Around 86db. Their impedance is an even 6 ohms dipping no lower than 5.8 ohms. 

Playing HiRes dynamic classical recordings  ( Tchaikovsky , Mahler) at room filling volumes I have yet to exceed 1watt.. 

Amps today offer a lot of watts some going to 600 even 1200 watts. Even if you have inefficient speakers with an impedance that dips down to 2 ohms do we need all this wattage or should we be focusing on current instead? 

jfrmusic

Showing 1 response by curiousjim

@ghdprentice 

I’ve been looking at SF speakers and the dealer I’ve been talking to has mentioned several times that “These speakers need a lot of watts to sound good!”  One of the speakers I am looking at is the Amity G5 and he said that it needed 600 watts to really sing.  And I immediately thought of you and had to stifle a laugh.  He’s talking and I’m imagining you with 600 X 2 watts of ARC tube equipment.