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?

2psyop

Showing 1 response by verdantaudio

It varies wildly depending on the speaker and the amp.  Certain brands are best with huge amounts of power and are not just low efficiency low impedance as your rightly pointed out.  

That said, with speakers of even modest efficiency, amp quality is often more important that power.  I run Wilson-Benesch Discovery 3Zeros with a pair of 55w mono blocks.  I have run with more power (200w) into 8ohms via excellent SS amps and do not feel they outperform my better tube based monos.  

I just did an extensive test between my Canor tube monos and the AGD Gran Vivace.  AGDs delivered slightly better bass response.  Canors sound slightly more natural.  But these are small differences and most people would walk away saying both were great and a great match for the speakers.