POWER. ???????

[bigrod]

I know the principles ,
My uncle said it to me like this “ when you’re in a fight with a person who don’t fight back you don’t need to whack em so hard or you can do it for longer without sweating. But if he’s a big bugger ie a lot of resistance, you need to knock him out first hit ie you need lots of power .
I have Cabasse Kara’s and the Vincent 332 hybrid power amp , “just love meters”
Anyway here’s the jib, The amps go up to 150w and yet they vary rarely go over 1 watt , never above 4 watt ? on the meters
Assuming , considering the huge power output or lack of use of it against any detrimental resistance in wiring and 3 or 4 db efficiency in speakers , basically a nice domestic setup , do I have an amplifier thats 100 x what I need .
??????
Keep it simple

 

[Jules_S]

VU meters don't react quickly enough to show the effects of the fast musical transients. So your amp will be outputting in excess of 4W for momentary periods, without you seeing the impact.

Back in my "yoof" when I spent many an hour making cassette recordings, the machine I used had VU meters, and I used to have to make an educated guess about levels to avoid saturation due to those peaks that the meters never told me about. Later on when I had a machine with an electronic display that reacted far faster, the job became a lot easier

P.S. VU meters still look the dog's danglies!

 

[bigrod]

The bonkers thing is the amp sits in a cupboard and I never use the VU meters
In response to Jules . even at 4W its uncomfortable..it’s not gonna jump to 10 no matter the peak wattage requirement. The speakers would jump out their eyeballs and my collection of LSA vases would explode ..

 

[It Cost How Much!?!]

My Baltics are 94db 1w 1m, so yours must be about the same.

They are powered by a 160w power amp, so 50% volume is damn loud.

 

[Jazid]

Remember that power has a logarithmic relation to volume, so twice as loud is about 10 X the power. The argument is mostly for well recorded material with a high dynamic range. On crescendos the volume can go up many times, which can mean in the short term a *lot* of watts are needed. Supply of these is a good thing.

The downside is that typically high power amps make more noise than low powered ones, not proportionally necessarily, but in absolute terms. Here that log relationship works against the high power amp because in silent passages they both deal with zero signal but the noise remains the same. So a quiet amp of 10 watts output, compared to an equally quiet one of 1000 watts, will sound quiet at idle, the other wont (all other things being equal). Not a good thing.

As ever you pays yer money and takes yer choice. No universally right answers in hifi

 

[hearhere]

My Baltics are 94db 1w 1m, so yours must be about the same.

They are powered by a 160w power amp, so 50% volume is damn loud.

Yes, I can't quite get to grips with Bigrod's figures.

His Kara speakers are shown at 93.5 dB sensitivity. That's high but not particularly high - mine are 107 dB.

If he uses between 1 and 4 watts from his 150 watt amp to power them, I can only assume he's built some form of bracket and arranges his speakers as headphones! Also I wonder how he adjusts his volume control if he's only moving between outputs of 1-4 watts.

I have 2 amps at present as I'm considering a change. The older one is 200 watts into 8 ohms, the newer monos are rated at 100 watts. Both over-powered but I wouldn't change back to the 6 watts SETs I used to use.

I've been doing some careful listening today and a decent preamp volume is set at -30 dB for most tracks with the 100 watt amps. This provides peaks of about 70 to occasional 80 dB at my listening position, measured by a pretty basic meter app on my phone. Peter

 

[Beobloke]

My active speakers have 8200W of amplification in each speaker, so I’m probably not the right person to ask about having too much power…

 

[occasional thinker]

My active speakers have 8200W of amplification in each speaker, so I’m probably not the right person to ask about having too much power…

Powered from a 13A socket (3120W)?

 

[rabski]

One or two watts average power is quite sufficient for very reasonable volumes with fairly efficient (93ish dB) speakers. Peak power for transients will be substantially higher, but is extremely short duration. You 'need' more power to cover the peaks, but the vast majority of times, the average current is very low.

Watt meters are useless for anything other than a rough average and for looking pretty. To properly assess the current delivery, you'd need extremely fast reacting electronic measurement over time and to then 'expand' it to see what is happening.

 

[Billz]

It’s a bit like a modern car with a decent engine. Most drivers will rarely use the full power of their engine, but it’s there if you need it. A 3.0 ltr engine will have bags of power in reserve when cruising at 70mph, while a 1.0 ltr engine will be near its limit at the same speed. I know which one I prefer.

 

[ian917]

I wouldn’t worry about it, having too little power is a much bigger problem. The extra power gives you greater headroom for big transients. Remember that 100 watts is only twice as powerful as 10 watts, so your amp isn’t all that powerful.

 

[StingRay]

Yes, I can't quite get to grips with Bigrod's figures.

His Kara speakers are shown at 93.5 dB sensitivity. That's high but not particularly high - mine are 107 dB.

If he uses between 1 and 4 watts from his 150 watt amp to power them, I can only assume he's built some form of bracket and arranges his speakers as headphones! Also I wonder how he adjusts his volume control if he's only moving between outputs of 1-4 watts.

I have 2 amps at present as I'm considering a change. The older one is 200 watts into 8 ohms, the newer monos are rated at 100 watts. Both over-powered but I wouldn't change back to the 6 watts SETs I used to use.

I've been doing some careful listening today and a decent preamp volume is set at -30 dB for most tracks with the 100 watt amps. This provides peaks of about 70 to occasional 80 dB at my listening position, measured by a pretty basic meter app on my phone. Peter

1w at 1m will be 93DB, that is louder than most people listen at. I find around 85db to be loud enough. As headphones it would be even louder, is it 96DB?

It is your figures I don't understand, you seem to be contradicting yourself.

 

[bigrod]

Yes, I can't quite get to grips with Bigrod's figures.

His Kara speakers are shown at 93.5 dB sensitivity. That's high but not particularly high - mine are 107 dB.

If he uses between 1 and 4 watts from his 150 watt amp to power them, I can only assume he's built some form of bracket and arranges his speakers as headphones! Also I wonder how he adjusts his volume control if he's only moving between outputs of 1-4 watts.

I have 2 amps at present as I'm considering a change. The older one is 200 watts into 8 ohms, the newer monos are rated at 100 watts. Both over-powered but I wouldn't change back to the 6 watts SETs I used to use.

I've been doing some careful listening today and a decent preamp volume is set at -30 dB for most tracks with the 100 watt amps. This provides peaks of about 70 to occasional 80 dB at my listening position, measured by a pretty basic meter app on my phone. Peter

The preamp is the Cambridge edge with streamer
The volume knob at over 12 o’clock position is way too loud . Normally between 10 and 11 for me on my own

 

[Beobloke]

Powered from a 13A socket (3120W)?

Yep. I keep trying to blow the fuse but I give up long before the speakers do...

 

[rabski]

Yep. I keep trying to blow the fuse but I give up long before the speakers do...

If you keep trying, you'll be able to replace it with a much better fuse