Why has amplifier power become a big issue
Nothing has changed except awareness that many speakers have not been driven to full potential over the years due to use with commercial gear like receivers and cheaper integrated amps without enough muscle to get the absolute most out of most modern speakers that tend to be smaller but retain low end extension meaning more current and beefier amps needed. Usually the smaller and more extended a speaker the more the burden falls on the amp to make things click to the max. |
As far as I know it's just trendy. It's like having the car that goes 400MPH though you drive it to work and the store. It's also pretty wasteful unless you are using a high-efficiency amplifier. Some speakers have been deliberately "juiced" to provide very low impedances. This makes them more critical of the amplifier, and audiophiles, lord knows why, think the speaker that only takes 1 of 3 amplifiers must be better and more exclusive. If you have one of these, then you definitely will need an amp with current to spare. Is it worth listening to a big bad amplifier? Sure. However I would never let them talk you into upgrading if you don't hear the difference in your system. Best, Erik |
Looking at the measurements here: http://www.stereophile.com/content/vandersteen-2ce-signature-ii-loudspeaker-measurements I'd say that's a pretty amplifier friendly speaker. The impedance dropping into the deep bass may be helped by a stiff amp though nothing outrageous. I would imagine a number of good small amps would drive it very well such as the Parasound Halo A23. 125W/Ch and good with 4 Ohms. Based on the measurements, this speaker by the way seems to have an impedance compensation network specifically to make it easy to drive even with modest powered tube amps. |
Some of the sounds speakers make, such as a sharp whack on a drum, a firm pluck of a bass string, a loud voice or voices, the plink of a piano key (transients), can require lots of watts for a very short period to reproduce the leading edge of those sounds optimally. A 50 watt amp may or may not be able to deliver the necessary power to reproduce them optimally, depending on the speaker and your listening tastes. If you are happy with the sound you’re getting from your system, you don’t need a more powerful amp. Also there are a lot of speakers that are power hogs that don’t sound good unless driven by a powerful amp. |
I blame it on the Bose 901. Prior to the introduction of that power-hungry loudspeaker, a 50 or 60 watt (per channel) amplifier was considered all a speaker, even the inefficient acoustic suspension designs of the day such as the Acoustic Research 3a, needed. Plus, that’s about as powerful an amp as was available at the time, one exception being the McIntosh MC2100 (105w/ch), which I owned. That all changed with the appearance of the Phase Linear 700 (350w/ch). The power race was on, along with as-low-as-possible-no-matter-the-sonic-penalty low test-bench distortion figures. J. Gordon Holt with his Stereophile Magazine alone, until Harry Pearson published the first issue of The Absolute Sound in 1973, fought against the insanity that followed. Luckily, at about the same time, the emergence of high end amplifiers, designed for sound quality into speakers rather than ultra-low distortion specs into test-bench simulated speaker loads, were beginning to appear in the new audiophile dealer network springing up around the country, selling the pioneering Audio Research Corporation products (with their tube amps, tubes having been abandoned by the hi-fi industry years before) and other perfectionist sound quality designs. It’s important to remember that a doubling of output power, all else being equal, increases SPL by only 3dB. A 300w amp, identical in every way to a 150w one save power output, provides only a 3dB increase in sound. Big deal. |
When you say power, there’s two types, current and wattage. You can have 300w in a small package with no current. But to get that 300w with great current as well, things start to grow, so does your electric bill. It’s because many hiend speakers themselves have become harder and harder to drive, many of Wilson ect droping down to sometimes 1 or even less ohms, unheard of back in the day. They need both wattage and current. And it became progressivly worse since those Avent days, not a bad thing as todays harder to drive speakers sound very good compare to the old sludge boxes of yester year. Cheers George |
If you choose speakers of high efficiency, 100db+ you can use amps with just a few watts of power. Roger Russel of Mcintosh speaker fame talked about how he was tasked with building speakers that could handle 100's of watts. The reason? To sell big power Amps that they also produced. Speakers can be had with very high efficiency and that's part of the reason the single ended amp is being made by quite a few companies these days. Its a matter of choice, sure if you want a 500 watt class A Pass Amp/Space Heater its readily available... He also has tiny 5 watt amps under the First Watt brand. |
I guess that for my room in my NYC apartment listening to the music I listen to (small jazz quartet/quintet) the 50 watt amp does it for me. I have other amps up to 200 watts per channel from other manufacturers that I can use if the mood strikes. I just wanted to ask to see what has changed in peoples perception of sound that keeps the power output on some amps going up. Vandersteens aren't the most efficient speakers out but they don't present to many problems for most amps. I know listening to volumes greater than 85 db for long periods of time isn't great for your hearing. I listen at volumes that require a couple of watts and the transients require maybe 20 watts for short bursts and that can be covered by my 50 watt amp, no? |
Nothings has really changed. Loudspeakers with a sensitivity in the mid-80s will sound perfectly fine with 30-50wpc. Of course these same loudspeakers will sound better with 150-200wpc when played at louder volume levels. However, if your typical listen level is 75-85dB, then 30-50wpc is sufficient for most types of music. It's been my experience that if high volumes levels are required that high sensitivity loudspeakers is a better route than high wattage amps. |
Power specification is very vague. Average music power is only a few percent of the peak power. Headroom of the amplifier is very important but most of the time not even specified. I also enjoy my class D amp, especially at lower volume. It does not loose composure, provides perfect imaging and strong bass. It is closer to tube amp, in sound, than any SS amp I had. In addition many amps, including my class D amp, have soft clipping, protecting tweeter from excessive amount of HF harmonics. |
I think class D amps are modern marvel, but they don't truly solve the problem. Feeding mega-watts into a moving coil loudspeaker will result in thermal compression unless you over build the loudspeaker which makes it too massive to properly respond to transients. A 93dB sensitive loudspeaker with a 50 wpc amplifier will have an equivalent max volume as a 85dB sensitive loudspeaker and a 300 watt amplifier. I just think the former is a more elegant solution. |
