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Low Watt amps: please enlighten me...


MeloManiac

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I live in Europe and paid substantial postage and import duties for Tubedepot's Tubecube 7, a cd sized tube amplifier. I have no regrets at all, because the sound it produces is amazing. And, though it is only 3.5 W per channel, it can play really loud, especially with my efficient Heresy I speakers. Of course, my Marantz amp (40W) can go much louder, but for my room and listening style, the Tubecube produces more than enough decibels... 

 

Hence my question: in plain terms, who can explain the science of this to me? I've read it elsewhere: it is the first couple of watts that are important... But why? 

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Most of your listening is done around 80 to 85 dB, or 0.1 watts average into a Heresy.  That leaves about 15 dB of headroom for peaks with your 3.5 watt amp.  With a tube amp, clipping has a more melodic, benign sound, so the very few peaks at +20 dB don't spoil the sound. 

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3 hours ago, ILI said:

IMG_20191019_205404.thumb.jpg.50c8dcd3688f3ab7567e7b01cb4cf428.jpgI live in Europe and paid substantial postage and import duties for Tubedepot's Tubecube 7, a cd sized tube amplifier. I have no regrets at all, because the sound it produces is amazing. And, though it is only 3.5 W per channel, it can play really loud, especially with my efficient Heresy I speakers. Of course, my Marantz amp (40W) can go much louder, but for my room and listening style, the Tubecube produces more than enough decibels... 

 

Hence my question: in plain terms, who can explain the science of this to me? I've read it elsewhere: it is the first couple of watts that are important... But why? 

There are several low priced tube amps from China avaliable on eBay. Is shipping from China to Europe reasonable? 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Interested in the TubeCube 7 for a small bedroom system.  Don't particularly care for Klipsch or other horn base speakers and not familiar with full-range speakers such as the Fostex P-1000 and/or Fostex P-1000-BH.  Basically I would be looking for commercially available speakers in the $200 a pair or less range that would work well with the Tube Cube 7 in a small bedroom environment.  Btw I'm a 67 year old Navy Veteran living on Social Security and yes, I'm familiar with tube amps having once own a Jolida SJ502A.  Anyway suggestion/comments greatly appreciated.

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3 hours ago, NavyCorpsman said:

Interested in the TubeCube 7 for a small bedroom system.  Don't particularly care for Klipsch or other horn base speakers and not familiar with full-range speakers such as the Fostex P-1000 and/or Fostex P-1000-BH.  Basically I would be looking for commercially available speakers in the $200 a pair or less range that would work well with the Tube Cube 7 in a small bedroom environment.  Btw I'm a 67 year old Navy Veteran living on Social Security and yes, I'm familiar with tube amps having once own a Jolida SJ502A.  Anyway suggestion/comments greatly appreciated.

Commercial speakers will likely need to be at least 90 db efficient or else which may present a problem for the Tubecube 7. If you can find the speakers you are suggesting for that price with 90+ db efficient and not Klipsch, please let me know.

Welcome to the forum...

 

 

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14 hours ago, NavyCorpsman said:

Interested in the TubeCube 7 for a small bedroom system.  Don't particularly care for Klipsch or other horn base speakers and not familiar with full-range speakers such as the Fostex P-1000 and/or Fostex P-1000-BH.  Basically I would be looking for commercially available speakers in the $200 a pair or less range that would work well with the Tube Cube 7 in a small bedroom environment.  Btw I'm a 67 year old Navy Veteran living on Social Security and yes, I'm familiar with tube amps having once own a Jolida SJ502A.  Anyway suggestion/comments greatly appreciated.

I did a little 'bedroom' test for you. 

From left to right: Denon 30W 6 ohm bookshelf speakers (price around €120), Amazon 8 HD fire tablet, Tubecube 7 and a China made 50W 'hybrid' amp.

 

  • The 50Watt hybrid amp (€70) can play the tiles off the roof with these tiny speakers and sounds really good. It comes with bluetooth, minijack and rca inputs.
  • The Tubecube (€175/€300) has connections for 4/6/8 ohm speakers - which is rather remarkable. The sound is really good as well, while the volume can be pretty loud, but it will never blow the tiles off the roof.
     

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  • 3 years later...

There are some real great EL84 Amplifiers out there Wright Audio makes a great unit and so does Line Magnetic their version is a headphone amplifier. Those are two great sounding units built like a tank. As far as the Tube Depot Cube 7 goes this unit is amazing if you pair it with speakers 94db plus. Also if you feed this amplifier excellent speaker cable and interconnect you will not be disappointed the sound is very liquid I use Omega Super 7 speakers with It and people are blown away with the sound. A friend uses Klipsch I believe KB-15 94db he got on Amazon for $150. that to sounds very good. Mine runs Into a QED passive headphone switch then to a subwoofer that accepts speaker line inputs and outputs, then to my speakers. Great amplification for minimum amount of money, Oh and I'm using another great bargain In audio Monoprice Monolith 10ft speaker cables amazing sound. I am using Russian NOS EL-84 tubes I purchased from the Tube Depot Express, the supplied Sino tubes are not bad but the NOS tubes do sound better.

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