Watts! How many do we need?

If you want to know accurately and in realtime how much power your amp is  consuming then look into purchasing Emporia Smart Plug with energy monitor (on Amazon).

The Emporia Smart Plug allows you to monitor the energy use realtime and control most appliances from anywhere with the Emporia App on your mobile

 It takes very accurate reading every second (resolution of 0.1W) and you can see all the peaks and troughs on a graph and even download the data in a spreadsheet!

@rshank64 
 

@pindac

My most recent experience of a Valve Amp design producing 3 Watts Output, has been a revelation.

3 Watts of valve amplification may be sufficient to drive some very efficient speakers in a small room in nearfield listening mode. It may produce all the fine attributes you mentioned but for most meduim/large speakers in a medium/large room setup this wattage will certainly not be sufficient.

In the context of how many watts we need, with all the virtues of valve amplifiers, 3W/10W/20W will not be able to energies any meduim/large room in any satisfying way in many/most cases. One should also be guided by speaker's recommended amplification.

In my case,  I was once interested in a very high end 50W valve amplifier but when I spoke to the manufacturer they said for my speakers and in my room 50W will not be sufficient! I will need 160W valve amp to be fully able to energise the room and get the best out of my speakers.  There must be a reason why the company also sell 250W valve monoblocks. My speaker's recommended amplification: 50-1000W into 8 ohms. Sensitivity: 90dB  .

@rshank64

@pindac
Thanks for the detailed description  of your experience and surroundings where this demo took place.
That is indeed a very impressive performance from a 3W valve amp.  It is very encourging to know that there are new valve designs in development which may change the way we experience audio.
Hope this product will be made  available to all to evaluate, purchase and enjoy in the near future!