Have You Listened to a Low Power Amplifier?

zingo

mhardy6647 wrote: »

I think it would be interesting to poll the respondents to this thread and ask them if they have listened to (let's say: at least 30 minutes) a high-quality, low-powered integrated amplifier or power amp(s), vacuum tube or solid state, on appropriately sensitive speakers.

5 watts per channel or less?
10 watts per channel or less?
30 watts per channel or less?

I decided to start a new thread/poll with the great idea from mrh.

Please mark which amps you have listened to, then share with us what amp(s) they were, and what your experience was. Please also include the speakers used in the listening session if you feel they made a difference. Enjoy!

silvertuner

heard a 4wpc tube amp pushing a pair of model 7 polks. sounded great, and still had to turn it down to be able to talk. ive become a believer in lower wattage amps.

steveinaz

Not a power amp, but I had a 25watt Fisher tubed receiver/turntable combo (bought it used around 1972). It came with Fisher speakers, but I don't recall what model they were. It had plenty of power, but was in a smaller sized room.

mhardy6647

Bob Danielak's SE 1626 "DC Darling" 750 milliWatts per channel; fine sounding little amplifier but a little hard to find speakers for :-)

http://www.reocities.com/bobdanielak/darling.html
http://www.the-planet.org/audio.html

zingo

My 20wpc upgraded Kingrex T20U-PSU Tripath based amp is an amazing little thing, and I still haven't heard better sound through my custom Klipsch Forte speakers than my 8wpc upgraded Shuguang Treasure 300B amp.

I'd still like to hear some "flea powered" stuff like the Transcendent 1.5wpc amp or the Bottlehead S.E.X. 2wpc amp.

zombie boy 2000

A Monarchy SM-70 Pro (25 watts) powering a pair of Totem Arros (87dB) to sonic bliss.

halo71

Do 1/10th watt guitar amps count? I have heard one of these running a 4x12 cabinet before....was pretty awesome.

newrival

halo71 wrote: »

Do 1/10th watt guitar amps count? I have heard one of these running a 4x12 cabinet before....was pretty awesome.

awesome little amp.

That reminds me. When I was in highschool, I had a guitar amp that ran on a 9v battery and had a tiny speaker in it and it used a Marlboro reds cigarette pack as the housing. no controls. only 1/4" in and 1/4" out. that thing drove my Marshall 4x12 pretty damn loud... crazy.

Oh, I think it was called a Smokey Amp (?)

Ricardo

Other than radios, cans, old consoles and other low power "systems", the lowest power amps I've heard/owned were the ASL 20 monos. Those 20 watts sounded like a lot more. I tried them with several speakers but they shined with the Von Schweikert VR1's.

heiney9

20 wpc Gainclone LM3886 chip amp w/Black Gate caps, Caddock & Dale resistors - Precise, controlling, flat, lifeless, bland, generic, disjointed sounding. Didn't really care for it on the the SDA's or 5B's. It sounded very contrived and not natural at all.

15 wpc Dared MP-5 clone (has HCT stamped on it) same as the Fatman iPod dock - This is a hybrid with a tube front end and Mosfet chipamp power section. A dynamite little amp that with the right tubes can sound very, very good. A tad short on dynamics at times and the soundstage while convincing is a tad smaller than a really good tube amp. Overall, no way it should sound as good as it does. Very easy to listen to w/vocal and acoustic instruments sounding excellent.

16 wpc Dared VP-16 - (4) 6V6 power tubes in push/pull configuration, adjustable grid bias for each output tube. (2) 6SL7's in the front end, 4 and 8 ohm taps. This is one of my favorite sounding tube pieces. From day 1 I switched out the JJ 6V6 tubes for 1950's RCA black plate gray glass tubes and this thing sounds spectacular, nice lower extension and detailed, great presence and midrange to die for. Laid back but very detailed.

9 wpc Norh SE-9 - Single Ended using (2) EL34's and (2) 12AX7's (1) GZ34 tube rectifier, cathode biased. Runs hot. Has a different sound than the push/pull 6V6 amp, a little more lush and less bass extension, a tad bit too much detail at times, a midrange to die for. Probably even better MIDRANGE than the Dared at times. As powerful or more than the Dared VP-16. I'm still messing with this one to get the sound correct, so far it's too forward for me and not enough bass. I use RCA long black plate, square getter in the 12AX7 position and Winged "C" or Tesla's (not JJ's) for the EL34's. Still on the fence.

30 wpc Pass Labs Aleph 30 - Single ended class A (Mosfet) only 2 gain stages very little NFB. It took me a year to decide to pull the trigger on this amp because it was only 30wpc. It was a wasted year because this is by the far the sweetest, most dynamic, most correct sounding amp I have ever heard. Everything is so pure and the clarity and resolution is the best I've heard. The whole spectrum is in perfect balance. The most musical amp I've heard to date.

At 30wpc I have yet to find it's limits with my SDA 1C's. You can play it at a whisper and still retain all the clarity and resolution of any amp I've heard.

H9

Ricardo

heiney9 wrote: »

It took me a year to decide to pull the tigger on this amp

What did Winnie say about that????

heiney9

Ricardo wrote: »

What did Winnie say about that????

SMA -

H9

zingo

heiney9 wrote: »

30 wpc Pass Labs Aleph 30 - Single ended class A (Mosfet) only 2 gain stages very little NFB. It took me a year to decide to pull the trigger on this amp because it was only 30wpc. It was a wasted year because this is by the far the sweetest, most dynamic, most correct sounding amp I have ever heard. Everything is so pure and the clarity and resolution is the best I've heard. The whole spectrum is in perfect balance. The most musical amp I've heard to date.

At 30wpc I have yet to find it's limits with my SDA 1C's. You can play it at a whisper and still retain all the clarity and resolution of any amp I've heard.

I've been dying to hear one of these on my horns. What pre do you use with it?

heiney9

zingo wrote: »

I've been dying to hear one of these on my horns. What pre do you use with it?

I use (2) pre's the SS pre is the Adcom GFP-750, dead neutral. I run a Dared SL2000A tube pre-amp through the HT bypass. When I have time and want to listen to tubes I use the Dared, for limited listening or on-critical listening I use the 750 which also can play in completely passive mode as well, which I find works great for most Beatles stereo recordings. They can be a bit much on SDA's sometimes.

So for me I have (3) very viable options that work incredibly well.

1) active SS
2) passive
3) tubes.

With the 750 the bypass is strictly a pass through, no signal processing or manipulation.

H9

cnh

Jstas brought a small tube amp (to PolkFest), a DIY project he'd put together and a pair of KLH Model 17s (I thinK?). If I'm not mistaken the amp put out 8 watts...I can't remember whether that was 8 watts/channel or 8 watts for both channels. It was a very 'sweet' sounding rig that cost next to nothing by audiophile standards. Of course, I am a big fan of Henry Kloss and love the old KLH models! But that little tube amp could drive those fairly loud.

I'm sure Jstas will chime in here!

On another note, I use the output from an old Aiwa amp section that is about 2-3 watts MAX (per/channel) to power my RadioShack Minimus 7 laptop system (on my desk) and although not ear-bleeding...it's loud enough and clean enough for near-field listening. A very "lowly" system indeed and not really Tube-based! Just simple and low power.

cnh

dcmeigs

This is a little single ended EL84 power amp that I pulled from a Magnavox console. I recapped the power supply adding some more capacitance to the second C of the CRC filter to quiet it down and then changed the coupling caps. Most of the vintage resistors are still on spec and quiet. I would like to try it on some big horns but now I use it with a pair of Zigmahornets. Naturally, the walnut trim makes it sound better. An EL84 has a maximum plate dissipation of 12 watts.



The tubes are all Magnavox. The first stage is a 6EU7 and the rectifier is a 6CA4 (EZ81) It's single ended so there is no phase splitter. It's biased at 20ma at 250 plate volts for a whooping 5 watts per channel.

ben62670

Plenty of little tube amps over Jerry's. He also has some big tube amps that didn't sound as good as the small ones.

FTGV

Three of my faves,two of which I owned.

1.)PassDIY Zen 7 watts of pure single ended ,single stage Class A.

2.)Original NAD 3020. 20 watts of sweet musicality.It absolutely stomped on many of the Japanese integrateds of that era in which I compared it to.

3.)Musical Fidelity A1 (aka.the boot scaper.) Another sweet sounding 20 watt Class A unit.

ben62670

Zingo you left out the option of "I have never heard any good low wattage amps".

treitz3

Doesn't matter. They wouldn't be able to positively contribute to the thread anyway.

zingo

treitz3 wrote: »

Doesn't matter. They wouldn't be able to positively contribute to the thread anyway.

Agreed. The thread is for Polkies who have and have not had experience with low power amps to read about other's experience with low power amps. I didn't see a point for people to post "I have not heard one" as it adds nothing to the topic.

scottyboy76

first and only experience was a couple weeks ago at his place, listening to cds on a jolida and lps.

Both the 3.5 watt, old stromberg carlson, with the plastic front from the old console stereo, and a big beautiful expensive tube amp, sorry cant remember the make.

Driving dcm 250s, the sda2bs i now have, and my apl prism 500s.

the little guy just blew me away,so did the big one, but i could not believe the volume,clarity, detail,and no ear pain.

WilliamM2

Back in the 70's and early 80's, 15 to 30 watt amps were common, and not considered low wattage at all.

mhardy6647

WilliamM2 wrote: »

Back in the 70's and early 80's, 15 to 30 watt amps were common, and not considered low wattage at all.

Very true - and I don't consider them low wattage either - but contemporary expectations have changed considerably in the intervening three-plus decades.

For me (and FWIW) the "low power" cutoff is probably in the region of a push-pull EL84 amplifier (12 to 14 watts per channel at reasonable operating points; the 7189 variants can be run a bit harder). Ten plus watts gets one out of the "super-high sensitivity" loudspeaker (e.g., 98+ dB/watt@1 meter) requirement (again my not-altogether arbitrary opinion).

FYI, the single-ended EL84 Maggotbox... umm, I mean, Magnavox, stereo console amp dcmeigs posted above is a surprisingly nice little amplifier to listen to.

zingo

WilliamM2 wrote: »

Back in the 70's and early 80's, 15 to 30 watt amps were common, and not considered low wattage at all.

Common? Yes, but not necessarily good sound quality.

Tour2ma

Last time I was at Russman's he was running a flea tube amp... ~8 wpc IIRC. No idea what name/ model... too long ago. With a sub assist the line arrays had at the time were doing quite nicely.

mhardy6647

zingo wrote: »

Common? Yes, but not necessarily good sound quality.

... but also not necessarily bad sound quality, either.

Here's a classic case in point, at 25 watts per channel, with dual power transformers/independent power supplies for each stereo channel:



Those speakers look strangely familiar, too, somehow...
(although that's the funniest-looking Philips GA-312 turntable you'll ever see...)

sucks2beme

If you ever get a chance, go listen to a Audio Note demo.
Low power and high speaker sensitivity at it's finest.

agfrost

Have a buddy with a Decware Zen Triode amplifier. Nifty, really good sounding amplifier.

xj4094dg

I heard some Sonist speaks at the Capital Audio Fest last June in Maryland and the amps were two diminutive, single-ended Glow amps, the 5Wpc Amp One on Sonist's Concerto 3 and the prototype 7Wpc, 832 on their Recital 3.

I heard some great jazz on these and found the sound to be clean and sweet. First time I heard a single ended tube amp (that I know of).

Good times.

silvertuner

just tonight i picked up a 11wpc freshly reconditioned magnavox 6v6 tube amp, not even broke in yet after the rebuild (everything was replaced, rewired, etc). this is my first tube amp i can call mine, and i am honestly in love. i am so new to this, harry told me the do's/dont's of tubes for nearly and hour lol.

ive powered my altec's with a 80wpc sony integrated, 80wpc sansui, 16wpc realistic, and finally i feel i am enjoying my Altec's.

another special thanks directly to Harry (HB27) for helping me in my quest. next quest? tube pre-amp, and a higher quality cd player, lol. after i restock the savings account that is.

the first time i heard my Altec's was on a 16wpc niteshade, they sounded very good, not AMAZING so to speak, but i feel they really livened up with this amp. pay no attention to the cheap wires in the picture, they were for quick set-up purposes only, and will be replaced once i get the energy



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