What Harbeth's do you have?
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?
Showing 5 responses by macg19
That's a very nice amp for those speakers, congrats. Fellow Harbeth owner - I'm seeing/hearing similar results. I think the "low" sensitivity of Harbeth's isn't that relevant with well-matched, high-current SS power which is exactly what you have based on Paul's video (able to double power from 8 to 4 ohms). Even if our meters are not perfectly calibrated, there is no doubt in my mind that they are a very good indication that the amp is barely breathing, and having virtually unlimited headroom is a really good thing. Enjoy it! |
@bigtwin Very interesting, thank you. |
Also consider clipping for tubes and SS is very different. (I'm running SS now but owned 3 tube amps and use a tube DAC now so I'm not trying to pick a side here) Part of the reason we like tubes, is the distortion, which increases as they get overdriven, and is obviously part of the design/intent in tube guitar amps. It's Jazz Sunday in our house today, and something else I thought of as I play both analogue and digital albums, is the wide variation of recording levels. It's nice to have (virtually) unlimited reserves of clean power for those lower level recordings. Lastly, I don't understand this.
You don't need walls of drivers and the only jousting with 600wpc is financial/spouse approval. |
Point taken. But in this context we are talking about modern power amps/integrated amps that put out high-current, 300 wpc plus into a pair of small to medium size speakers. And in the case of Harbeth's, were designed/voiced for SS. Conversely, I'm hoping to put together a much lower powered tube system again when circumstances allow it, but maybe with some vintage Tannoy's or similar. (I owned a 35wpc Raven Audio Osprey that was oh so sweet sounding - I miss it) No question both high-power and low-power strategies can sound fantastic when the synergy is right. |