Are all watts created equal

[Woofers and Tweeters]

Strictly 2 channel:

 

We talk about what amp / receiver sounds best with our speakers.

 

Why do some do noticeably better than others?

A time period to score / stay away from?

What have You  A/B? 

Does AVR do as well as Stereo?

What is in the McIntosh SS that sets it apart?

 

Pick one topic, address them all...

Discuss?

[Schu]

No way... just like capacitors, not all watts are the same (when it comes to sound quality)

[derrickdj1]

A watt is a watt but, all amps don't sound the same.  My avr sounds good but, it is different than the tube amp.  Can't make up my mind so, I have both for 2 ch.

[Karsoncookie]

All watts are equal, but some are more equal then others.

 

AWESOME AWESOME book, w so many implications, political and other.

 

OK, I've had a beverage or two, but  just thought of that.

 

Lars

[pzannucci]

It isn't 100% the power (watts) but how the speaker load interacts with the amplifier.  This can be in the form of damping factor, amplifier impedance compared to the speaker, and distortion.  I find the distortion is most noticed in the mid-high / high frequency range and the impedance or damping factor in the low frequency.  Also the amount of current and damping to offset the back emf of the woofer movement definitely affects bass / mid-bass response.

 

So in amplifiers, a watt is not a good watt, depending on the load presented to it.

 

[Coytee]

Isn't a watt simply a measurement of heat dissipation?

 

Therefore, all watts (heat) are the same?

 

What we're really wondering about is are all volts the same?

 

Just wondering

[Woofers and Tweeters]

Not without factoring time in.

[Woofers and Tweeters]

For me, it's too early to drill too deep into Joules, Ohm's Law, farads and such. 

 

When I started to get back into this hobby again, I had a pair of Heresy and a 12" Velodyne being driven by a digital receiver. It was loud and I thought it sounded fine. Later, I grabbed a Luxman receiver and, though it was a lot less wattage, it had a lot more punch and crisp bass and the highs became a lot clearer.  

I have had several power sources that sound great, and others not so great. There are several factors such as if it was TOTL to begin with and how fresh it is. I've had late model Denon, Yamaha, Pioneer, etc, and none have the detail that I hear in some of my other (non-digital) gear. Several others agree when I AB the equipment. 

 

Is there a brand or time period to avoid.

Can an AVR have the dynamics and detail that a fresh HK730 or _______ has?

[dirtmudd]

Try this..

 

http://www.rocketroberts.com/techart/powerart_a.htm

 

http://www.head-fi.org/t/486598/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths

[Zen Traveler]

If you are A/Bing sources make sure they are level matched when  you do the comparison....Fwiw, when it comes to harder to drive speakers with jagged impedance curves, the deciding factor seems to be if the power source can deliver enough current to handle the impedance dips at the volume a person wants to listen.

[Honeybadger]

11 hours ago, Weber said:

What is in the McIntosh SS that sets it apart?

Not sure, but Mac's sound good to me as well.

 

I suspect the output transformers may have something to do with it, or its the placebo resultant of the price tag.

[Don Richard]

One must consider headroom whenever comparing amplifiers. Certainly an amplifier that has 3 dB dynamic headroom will sound louder than an amp of the same FTC wattage rating with zero dB headroom. NAD's first amplifiers were rated 25 WPC by the FTC method but would output nearly 100 watts on music. One must compare wattage computed by the same method to get useful information for comparison purposes.

[Woofers and Tweeters]

5 hours ago, dirtmudd said:

Try this..

 

http://www.rocketroberts.com/techart/powerart_a.htm

 

http://www.head-fi.org/t/486598/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths

I've never read that thread before. I've started it now, will finish it later.

Thanks

[Woofers and Tweeters]

4 hours ago, Zen Traveler said:

If you are A/Bing sources make sure they are level matched when  you do the comparison....Fwiw, when it comes to harder to drive speakers with jagged impedance curves, the deciding factor seems to be if the power source can deliver enough current to handle the impedance dips at the volume a person wants to listen.

To make it as even as I can. I use the same source (CD, etc) and divide it between the two power sources. Then into equal speakers. I used to use two pair of KLF30, now I'm using (4) Chorus II. To insure the speakers don't have an outside spread advantage, A will drive speaker 1 and 3 while B will drive speakers 2 and 4. 

 

Maybe it's the cables?? 

 

 

[Woofers and Tweeters]

3 hours ago, Honeybadger said:

Not sure, but Mac's sound good to me as well.

 

I suspect the output transformers may have something to do with it, or its the placebo resultant of the price tag.

No

[Woofers and Tweeters]

1 hour ago, Don Richard said:

One must consider headroom whenever comparing amplifiers. Certainly an amplifier that has 3 dB dynamic headroom will sound louder than an amp of the same FTC wattage rating with zero dB headroom. NAD's first amplifiers were rated 25 WPC by the FTC method but would output nearly 100 watts on music. One must compare wattage computed by the same method to get useful information for comparison purposes.

I agree with you. In this case, 1 watt says a lot. At 10 watts it's more than loud enough for any test for sound quality that I'm seeking. 

[rbrown0678]

  This is a topic that comes up from time to time, I suppose considering the logic, yes, 

Now the path we take to get there can be quite different. I would consider the journey that gives the traveler the satisfactory, experience pointing out all unexpected nuances,that makes the expereance of the journey memorable , I imagine you would find it difficult to get an unbiased opinion due to the personal and positive journey, the opposite is also true. 

What can you live with, also means you'll live without some things, we can be thankful for choices. 

Just the way I see it  

Errol 

[moray james]

there are a couple of things I think are worth considering. First tube amps can generate way more watts than their rated level but they do so with progressively more distortion. This means that they can output a lot more power into your speakers than a SS can output with out clipping and without sounding bad because the peak time is so very short. Lets say that for argument both amplifiers are rated at say thirty watts. That is one of the main reasons that tube amps sound so much more powerful when considering their rated power. Most SS amps will clip fairly close to their rated power. So much so that many SS makers simply under rate their amplifiers to make them seem more powerful. I think that we have all hear the saying that tube watts are more powerful than SS watts and this is the simple explanation for that misconception.

   Secondly it is not really the watts that count but the quality of the watts that you have at hand. I am going to assume that you have enough watts to do the job which is to drive the speaker. From a strictly quality of sound point of vies even a half watt will play just about any loudspeaker more than loud enough for you to establish if the sound is good or not. I have built and owned a fair number of tiny flea power amps and they can yield decent listening levels even with speakers or 88 db efficiency levels. Having said that many people simply do not use common and almost ancient knowledge that you choose the speaker to do the job that you need to do and then you choose the amp to meet the needs of that speaker NOT the other way around.

   The last point that I would like to address is that there are so very many lousy amplifiers out there (no matter the price range) that most people have a very hard time believing that there are very special amps which actually do sound exceptional, but there are. Most systems are so flawed that when owners swap out components they actually hear very little difference and so they draw the conclusion there there is in fact little or no difference. That's unfortunate but I see this all the time. People jus plain flat out for the most part refuse to accept responsibility for how their system sound and the pan it off to others. How often do we hear the complaint "well I spent a lot of money and was assured that I was getting the best there was" That is a cop out. If it sounds better then it probably is. If you purchase by the numbers alone then you are probably getting taken for a ride and you will get what you paid for.

[Arash]

buy yourself a Hypex NCore amplifier and search no more. it simply outperforms amplifiers with tenth times of it's price when it comes to sound quality. it's good enough that I decided to build a chassis for it out of a single piece of solig 6061-T6 Aluminum. After building the power amplifier we just decided to build an identical preamplifier for it with Hypex DLCP (it could be used at a 6 channel active crossover):

 

 

 

[pzannucci]

Kind of the path I went.  Bought several IcePower amps from the Bel Canto Ref-1000s to other 500w @ 4ohms IcePower amplifiers.  Somewhat tube like with tons of headroom as long as you don't have nasty low impedance in the highs which mostly only Martin Logan does.   Very liquid when sourced right and very tight on the bottom end with ridiculous drive.

 

Arash,

Very nice.  No I don't have a wonderful CNC as you do but if I did, I'd be broke and be disappearing for days on end.  A number of Class D amplifier manufacturers have put together modules that can definitely make a large number of tube fanatics move to Class D while giving the best of what SS has to offer.