Is there any point buying a powerful amp for low volume listening?

polkfarmboy · June 2010

I will be buying an amp soon but forgetting that a powerful amp is beneficial down the road for moving to a bigger room ,seakers etc .... Is there any other reason for choosing a 200 wpc over a 120wpc ?

Face · June 2010

There's more to an amp other than WPC.

BlueFox · June 2010

polkfarmboy wrote: »

I will be buying an amp soon but forgetting that a powerful amp is beneficial down the road for moving to a bigger room ,seakers etc .... Is there any other reason for choosing a 200 wpc over a 120wpc ?

All things being equal, more power is better than less power. Even if you barely turn up the volume, you will still be using all the power at some point.

fbm211 · June 2010

Forgetting the furture.

An adcom 535 or 545 would be a good investment.As for choosing a 120 over a 200,that really doesnt matter since there are 120s that would destroy 200s in terms of SQ.
What amps are you looking at and what speakers do you have?

Ric5811 · June 2010

More power means better control of frequencies, soundstage and imaging. Not to mention dynamic peaks and subtleties.

punk-roc · June 2010

When I upgraded my amp (in WPC terms, 200wpc to 375wpc) for my Amazings it was night and day.. and i usually only listen at low-ish volumes.. exactly what Ric was stating.. better soundstage, the sound was far more "fuller" - like it bought new speakers..

Jason

comfortablycurt · June 2010

More power is generally better, as it provides more dynamic headroom, but you don't necessarily need the "200 wpc minimum" that gets tossed around here. My 100 wpc Adcom GFA545 is MORE than adequate for driving my SDA 2A's. I can't crank it as loud as I could with a more powerful amp, but the 545 is more than enough for 95% of my listening situations. It can effortlessly drive my 2A's to around 95-100 db...which is pretty damn loud, and sounds fantastic while doing it.

Conradicles · June 2010

More power added much more bass at lower listening levels for me.

Ric5811 · June 2010

Conradicles wrote: »

More power added much more bass at lower listening levels for me.

+1, my other point! Thanks Conrad!

Fongolio · June 2010

I recently went from a 225 wpc Carver TFM-25 to a 375 wpc Carver TFM-45. I live in an apartment where cranking it is very rare. The 45 has more low level bass, better detail, better transients and a slightly wider deeper soundstage. Absolutely nothing wrong with the 25, it's just that the 45 has more of everything at low volume and can shake the house at higher volumes.

cstmar01 · June 2010

Also power hungry speakers will like the more power even if at low listening levels. Such as Maggies, Carver Amazings, ect will all enjoy the more power they can have.

pitdogg2 · June 2010

Fongolio wrote: »

I recently went from a 225 wpc Carver TFM-25 to a 375 wpc Carver TFM-45. I live in an apartment where cranking it is very rare. The 45 has more low level bass, better detail, better transients and a slightly wider deeper soundstage. Absolutely nothing wrong with the 25, it's just that the 45 has more of everything at low volume and can shake the house at higher volumes.

To be fair you really can't compare these two amps. The only thing they have in common is the TFM name. They are built on two completely different principals. I got this information from Rita and Roland, Rita would know she built them for years and still repairs them.

all things considered if you never ever get your amp to break a sweat more power is better than just enough. I heard a Ayre amp 200wpc that just ran circles around my TFM 45 but then i would expect that for a 7000.00 amp so in that case less power was better.

heiney9 · June 2010

Face wrote: »

There's more to an amp other than WPC.

I agree, MUCH more than the manufacturer's power rating.

H9

hearingimpared · June 2010

Ric5811 wrote: »

More power means better control of frequencies, soundstage and imaging. Not to mention dynamic peaks and subtleties.

My sentiments exactly except I would add that you get these benefits at lower volumes too as long as you pick and good, solid, high current, high quality, well designed amp! Don't let just high wpc ratings lure you in. Some amps put out tons of high wpc and sound awful.

heiney9 · June 2010

BlueFox wrote: »

All things being equal, more power is better than less power. Even if you barely turn up the volume, you will still be using all the power at some point.

No not really. Of course I guess you need to define "power". If power to you is simply the wpc rating then I have to disagree with your statement.

H9

P.s. I know I have beaten this explanation to death for the regular readers but I have 30wpc currently in a single ended class A design that smokes any other amp I've heard to date in my rig. Including those that are rated up to 200wpc. It simply leaves them in the dust.

One thing is, it won't win an ultimate spl contest. You need watts if you want to achieve ear bleeding levels. I can safely hit over 100dB spl from my 6 foot listening position with 30wpc and it will shake the walls with bass if it's in the recording.

Watts are part of the overall equation, but really aren't an indicator of how good an amp will perform.

heiney9 · June 2010

Bass at low levels, micro dynamics, detail at lower levels comes more from the amp design and implementation than the power ratings.

mhardy6647 · June 2010

quality is more betterer than quantity.

Jim Shearer · June 2010

As has been said, there is WAY more to it than WPC. You really need to look at the specific speakers you will be using and find the right amp for them. I have experienced situations where lots of SS watts sounded pitiful compared with a flee powered single ended tube amp.

Synergy, synergy, synergy...
Jim

mhardy6647 · June 2010

one place where one needs (IMNSHO) to be very careful - pairing high-power (and/or ultra-low distortion via extreme use of NFB) amplifiers with high-efficiency loudspeakers (or, I guess, moderate-efficiency loudspeakers listened to at low levels and/or nearfield). Many of the behemoth amps just aren't at their best at the 100 mW (or less!) to 1W average output levels that such uses entail. No less luminary hifi mavens than Paul W. Klipsch and Nelson Pass (whose Venn diagrams probably don't otherwise intersect all that much!) explicitly recognized the primal importance of that "first watt".

http://www.firstwatt.com/
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showpost.php?p=3195485&postcount=8

BlueFox · June 2010

heiney9 wrote: »

No not really. Of course I guess you need to define "power". If power to you is simply the wpc rating then I have to disagree with your statement.

I guess you missed the "All things being equal" part. Two identical amps, except for power rating, the more powerfull amp will provide better sound at lower, and higher, SPLs as others have explained above.

Trying to compare two completely different amps soley on power is probably not the best method.

heiney9 · June 2010

BlueFox wrote: »

I guess you missed the "All things being equal" part. Two identical amps, except for power rating, the more powerfull amp will provide better sound at lower, and higher, SPLs as others have explained above.

Trying to compare two completely different amps soley on power is probably not the best method.

No I didn;t miss that part. I prefer an Adcom 545 over a 555 and those are the same amps, the 555 has twice the power rating. Now these differences are slight, but to my ears they are there.

I do get what you are saying though and as a "general" statement it's a good one, but there are no absolutes in audio because of all the different gear that can be paired together and the fact that it's all very subjective.

H9

Hawkeye · June 2010

Like Jim above, I think it depends on the speaker you are attempting to drive. I have difficult to drive Martin Logan Spires which dip to .7 Ohms as I await my SDA's. I drove the Spire with a B&K 200 watt amp for awhile. Did it make music? Sure, but not as clear and accurate as I wanted.

If the meters are accurate (within a few % points) my low level listening only consumes about .5 watts. But my amps are also capable of delivering 90 amps if I recall. On a well recorded piece of music, even at such low consumption the needles bounce all over with peaks to 5 watts.

What is nice about the available power, is that it seems to be linear. If and when I choose to go loud, which I have on many ocassions

, the sound remains the same until the room or my ears overload. But, even with the power available, I won't win any SPL contests either. My speakers are the limiting factor. Now once I get the SRS2's in the house, I think my SPL count may be able to go a bit higher!

Gordon

hearingimpared · June 2010

Hawkeye wrote: »

Like Jim above, I think it depends on the speaker you are attempting to drive. I have difficult to drive Martin Logan Spires which dip to .7 Ohms as I await my SDA's. I drove the Spire with a B&K 200 watt amp for awhile. Did it make music? Sure, but not as clear and accurate as I wanted.

If the meters are accurate (within a few % points) my low level listening only consumes about .5 watts. But my amps are also capable of delivering 90 amps if I recall. On a well recorded piece of music, even at such low consumption the needles bounce all over with peaks to 5 watts.

What is nice about the available power, is that it seems to be linear. If and when I choose to go loud, which I have on many ocassions , the sound remains the same until the room or my ears overload. But, even with the power available, I won't win any SPL contests either. My speakers are the limiting factor. Now once I get the SRS2's in the house, I think my SPL count may be able to go a bit higher!

Gordon

Ya think!?!:D;)

heiney9 · June 2010

Hawkeye wrote: »

What is nice about the available power, is that it seems to be linear.
Gordon

But in many high power amp designs it's anything but linear; especially A/B push pull designs. Linearity can be better by using negative feedback but cheaper designs use too much negative feedback in order to try and acheive acceptable linearity. Which is one of many reasons why poorer designs sound awful even though the specs printed on paper look so good.

High power DOES NOT always mean a very linear output. The actual circuit design determines much more about linearity than anything else.

H9

cfrizz · June 2010

Getting my first really powerful amp (Parasound 1500A) was a real eye opener for me. ESPECIALLY at lower volume. I always had trouble hearing my music clearly when just using my Denon receiver. Once I hooked up the amp, I was hearing everything that was there (and some music I didn't know was there before) & was even able to lower the volume from -30 to -40 since it would have been too loud when listening at 6:00 in the morning.

We have had this disagreement over & over again. I seriously doubt that PFB wants to spend $7,000 or the kind of money it costs to get a class A, or tube amp. (apples to oranges comparisons)

The same way that it is not supposedly all about watts, it is also not about spending lots more money on a NAME for less watts either.

Some of you seem to think that everyone should spend their whole lives searching for the perfect synergy going through tons of gear & CASH. A good many people simply want to put together a good system without going broke so that they can just sit back & enjoy it.

He didn't ask about tubes, or class A. And usually powerful amps come in the SS varieties that can be had new or used at reasonable prices.

I'm all about helping people getting the most out of their gear at reasonable prices, and that usually means adding what you all use to call a "man amp" back in 2004 when everyone was into HT, & SVS subs.

Obviously you have grown beyond that which is great, but the majority of us are in this just to set up a decent HT. Not to jump head first down an endless, expensive rabbit hole.

heiney9 · June 2010

cfrizz wrote: »

Getting my first really powerful amp (Parasound 1500A) was a real eye opener for me. ESPECIALLY at lower volume. I always had trouble hearing my music clearly when just using my Denon receiver. Once I hooked up the amp, I was hearing everything that was there (and some music I didn't know was there before) & was even able to lower the volume from -30 to -40 since it would have been too loud when listening at 6:00 in the morning.

We have had this disagreement over & over again. I seriously doubt that PFB wants to spend $7,000 or the kind of money it costs to get a class A, or tube amp. (apples to oranges comparisons)

The same way that it is not supposedly all about watts, it is also not about spending lots more money on a NAME for less watts either.

Some of you seem to think that everyone should spend their whole lives searching for the perfect synergy going through tons of gear & CASH. A good many people simply want to put together a good system without going broke so that they can just sit back & enjoy it.

He didn't ask about tubes, or class A. And usually powerful amps come in the SS varieties that can be had new or used at reasonable prices.

I'm all about helping people getting the most out of their gear at reasonable prices, and that usually means adding what you all use to call a "man amp" back in 2004 when everyone was into HT, & SVS subs.

Obviously you have grown beyond that which is great, but the majority of us are in this just to set up a decent HT. Not to jump head first down an endless, expensive rabbit hole.

All good points Cathy as usual, but the OP didn;t bother to go into the kind of detail you did. Perhaps if he was more specific about his needs and what he was looking for, the answers could be very narrow. Right now this is a discussion about amps. The OP asked a 2 sentence question and expects to get a very narrowly define answer. He needs to take the time to formulate a question or questions which give a lot more information and much more specific.

You are just assuming he wants an oridinary 200wpc amp. I was just assuming he wanted something a little nicer...............who knows as he hasn't really formulated a good question beyond broad generalities. Because of the broad generalities left open by his very short question, the answers/discussion is all over the board

H9

heiney9 · June 2010

In fact, most of the answers have been very on point to his very short and general question.

You say he didn't ask about tubes or class A, where in his question did he make that clear?

Face · June 2010

All of my tube and class A amps were under $1,200, I don't know where you pulled $7,000 from.

jinjuku · June 2010

cfrizz wrote: »

Getting my first really powerful amp (Parasound 1500A) was a real eye opener for me. ESPECIALLY at lower volume. I always had trouble hearing my music clearly when just using my Denon receiver. Once I hooked up the amp, I was hearing everything that was there (and some music I didn't know was there before) & was even able to lower the volume from -30 to -40 since it would have been too loud when listening at 6:00 in the morning.

We have had this disagreement over & over again. I seriously doubt that PFB wants to spend $7,000 or the kind of money it costs to get a class A, or tube amp. (apples to oranges comparisons)

Great points made there. With my Parasound HCA1k and Adcom GFA 5503 I have two well built, well powered, well designed amps that get me 95% 'there'.

It's that last 5% that will quickly drain the wallet:eek:

mhardy6647 · June 2010

may i just say that searching for what you all call synergy need not take much cash at all (but it will take time and a certain willingness to either own, or go through, a lot of components).

The cosmetically beautiful pair of Radio Shack AF-12 (push-pull 6V6) integrated mono amps that are ensconced in my living room at the moment http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1355977&postcount=13 are very good sounding (not world class, but very respectable) and cost $140 the pair, restored by a top-class local Altec collector at the last New England Antique Radio Club fleamarket this past April. They're plenty "synergistic" with the $200 pair of Altec 848A Santiagos that they're mostly hooked up to.

N.B. they're just passing through; I bought them for a friend who was a little cash-strapped the day they were available -- he's patient, but I am gonna have to move them along soon...

polkfarmboy · June 2010

I thank everyone for their answers here given the very brief question I asked as I have had the theoretical responce I was looking for

I will take note of respondents comments as a tool to ask better questions wilst using the search engine

Cathy makes a good point that makes me stop in my tracks and realise that there is a rabbit hole thats easy to fall down .In this realisation maybe I should just buy a super duper cheap amp and pre to get a feel for some 2 channel listening because I'm a complete novice

Buying a cheap setup is a great way to aquire a taste for better gear is what I have read on many posts kinda like judging a super rare bottle of red wine when all I've previously tasted is cheap beer.

Heiney9 mentions a preference over the 555 with a 545 and I hear about that amp alot on here as a good starter amp so maybe I will look into that with a adcom pre to match . I will be using martin logan source but when I'm ready for some audio potholing I can always throw the adcom stuff in the game room to keep my dust collecting RTI 8's company

Is there any point buying a powerful amp for low volume listening?

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