What is your experience with amp power?


So I wanted to know what my fellow audiophiles feel about power.

I realize that some speakers are current hounds and need a prodigious amount of power or watts (lets say Maggies). But my question is for speakers that do not. Speakers that are easy to drive, or maybe just higher in efficiency and can be driven by a modest tube amp or even an adequate receiver. 

What is you experience with high power, high current amps ? Do your speakers sound better with more power? At low volumes, in a small or medium sized room? Do you think the quality of the music is dependent on higher powered amps?

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Showing 1 response by sameyers1

From my experience I generally agree with others that at sound levels of 85 dB or less one need not have an amplifier that puts out hundreds of watts per channel. Yes, how loud you listen, distance from the speakers, ceiling height, speaker sensitivity, all have an effect. But some speakers present particular challenges for amplifiers.This becomes more of an issue with larger inefficient speakers, but also with any speakers that have wide swings in their impedance curve at different frequencies. Some speakers stay close to 8 ohms or 4 ohms most of the time, while others can drop as low as 2 or 3 ohms, and a few drop even lower than that at certain frequencies. Those low impedance drops require more power from an amplifier, particularly if the drops occur in the lower frequencies reproduced by the larger bass drivers. You need to know the impedance curve of your speakers and determine if it is relatively flat, an easy load, or if it drops to a very low impedance along the frequency curve, a difficult load.

I had a personal experience with a pair of speakers I own, which are large 4 ohm, floor standing speakers with 10" woofers, but drop to a bit below 3 ohms at some frequencies. I brought home a very fine 120 w/ch @ 8 ohms Luxman integrated amp to audition at home. At modest listening levels the amp sounded fantastic. When I turned up the volume to a "live" level while listening to a symphonic piece, the amp very audibly started clipping. I immediately shut off the music to avoid damaging my speakers. Sometimes you end up learning things accidentally - the dealer explained the issue when I returned the Luxman unit. Not every amp can handle a load below 4 ohms well. Too bad because at modest listening levels it really was outstanding. But my old dual mono amp rated at 250 w/ch at 8 and 500 w/ch at 4 ohms never breaks a sweat driving my speakers, even at volumes in the 95 dB range. I can’t say the greater power rating makes my amp sound better at lower volumes, but that may be a trait of my speakers, which sound better at higher volumes. Then again at higher volumes there is more discernible bass, something true for all speakers, which is why old gear had "loudness" buttons or switches to boost those frequencies at low listening levels.

Happy listening.