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What's more important, watts or capacitance?

I'm confused about what makes an amp able to reproduce musical transients realistically. Some articles I've read state that one needs lots of power, measured in watts, to handle dynamics, especially when pushing moderately sensitive speakers. Other articles refer to capacitance as the key. Currently, I use an amp with 600W / 900W into 8/4 ohms, and if I read the specs correctly, it has 60,000 microfarrads of capacitance. An alternative I'm considering puts out 'only' about 220W / 400W but claims capacitance of 200,000 microfarrads. So which amp will sound more dynamic? FWIW, my speakers have a sensitivity of 87.5 db, avg. impedence of 4 ohms and a minimum impedence of 3 ohms. I don't listen at real high volumes, but I do like classical music at close to live levels.

Thanks for any insight!
slanski62

Showing 1 response by almarg

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almarg
9,670 posts
 
Stanwal: A complicated question with no simple answer; remember again specs aren't sound quality.

Hifihvn: Overall good design is whats important.
I second these comments. At best those specs will tell you how much maximum volume can be generated without clipping the amp. However, the subjective perception of dynamics involves a lot more than watts or energy storage, including a lot of things that can only be assessed by listening.

In particular, the subjective perception of dynamics will depend on how well the system reproduces the leading edges of rapidly changing transients. Things like risetime, ringing, overshoot, etc. Those things in turn can be affected by a whole lot of things, including the use of feedback in the design, transient intermodulation distortion, harmonic distortion, bandwidth, phase response, etc.

Regards,
-- Al
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