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In the Forum: Playback Listening
In the Thread: My Audio Philosophy
Post Subject: Power levelsPosted by montesquieu on: 10/8/2019
I have to say I totally disagree with you on these numbers. Perhaps for some solid state designs (somehow subjectively solid state watts never seem to have as much grunt as valve ones), driving modern multiple-driver speakers where the crossover is a major drag on performance. But the table above effectively rules out real world valve amplification for nearly all real world speakers - which, frankly, is nonsense and bears no relationship to reality of musical enjoyment.
I agree that Living Voice never sound like 94db, but they have never convinced me that their rated 94db is real or relates to any normal sort of measure, they always sound anaemic to me whatever is driving them, barely room filling under any conditions. So I would say they are an outlier, not really representative. (Awful speakers actually).
I'm not the biggest fan of AN-E's (I think they rely to much on cabinet resonance/corner placement and tend to be a bit one-note in the bass department) but I'm sure at a typical 92-94db given the model they work well enough with less than 60w! (Do Audio Note even make an amp with 60w?).
I think you need to do some more listening particularly to a wide range of good vintage equipment before you come to such a limiting judgment.
Not a fan of Wilsons either, they are exactly the kind of horrible multi-driver, life-sucking monstrosities that are killing hifi - sad to see speakers just like them in almost every room at the Munich show. And yes they do need giant amps to wake them up but most of the people who buy them don't take the trouble to explore the alternatives. Anyone trying to run them with 30w is an idiot.
500 ohm nominal seems fine for a solid state preamp, nothing to worry about there, should be happy with any power amp with a 50k input impedance, 100k for safety. (Real world again).
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