Do amps have a sweet spot?

I have upwards of 25 amps and they all sound best when they're 'cookin'. Does that not make sense from an engineer's point of view? Or from the one buying the amp for that matter.

Bombaywalla,

I'm going to read that thread, for sure. Thanks for the heads up.

Runnin,

Yeah, the Minuets are small, but they can eat some power. As mentioned above, I'm running an old Aragon 2004. It's a bit of a beast for what it is. It's rated at 100wpc at 8 ohms and 200 wpc at 4 ohms; and weighs right at 40lbs. My only problem with it is that I don't get that satisfying feeling from the music until I turn it up a bit until everything comes together.

My feeling was that maybe if I got into a smaller amp, I could get that satisfying sound at a lower volume. The NAD for me sounded good, but it didn't quite get it for me. It also didn't go quite loud enough for when I do want it loud.

I could have gone for one of the more powerful models, but at those prices, I'd have several options in terms of getting an amp.

Right now, for some reason, I really have a bug to get into a class D amp just to try it out, but that's a subject for another thread, which I'm gonna start right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher%E2%80%93Munson_curves

The increase in SPL by increasing the voltage by 3 dB will always be less than 3 dB due to the speaker not being 100% efficient (it has losses).

If the speaker is being operated at volume levels that are not high enough to cause it to behave in a significantly non-linear manner (e.g., for "thermal compression" to become significant), then 3 db more in will result in very close to 3 db more out, as the % efficiency will be the same at both power levels.

On the other hand, see this post by Duke of Audiokinesis, about thermal compression.

Regarding Bombaywalla's comment about 50W vs. 100W, I believe he is simply referring to the fact that different 100W amps may differ from each other, both subjectively and objectively, in terms of their maximum volume capability with a given speaker load. Same goes for two different 50W amps. Obviously there are many possible reasons for that, including the ones he mentioned as well as the distortion characteristics of the particular amps at various power levels, differences in dynamic headroom, etc.

As far as the OP's question is concerned, yes amplifiers can have "sweet spots," but as others have mentioned there are a lot of other variables that may be involved, including the behavior of the speakers at different volume levels, the Fletcher-Munson effect, amplifier-speaker interactions, and acoustical differences between your listening room and the shop at which you listened to the speakers. Or perhaps the problem is simply that capacitors in the Aragon have degraded over time, and need to be replaced. I don't see a path forward at this point that wouldn't be somewhat hit or miss.

Regards,
-- Al