Back in the 80s I went to the local stereo store intending to buy a Yamaha receiver. It had great specs, loads of features and from reading (not listening yet) appeared to be an excellent choice in the price range. My buddy worked there and said, ‘Yes, it is a good on. But lets go into the listening room’. So we listened to the Yamaha, then he said- ‘Just for comparison, listen to this one’ (same speakers, same source. It was light night and day! The other was a Luxman. It cost twice as much and was an integrated amp with very few features. But sounded so much better. I bought the Luxman (still have it)
A receiver versus an integrated amp isn't as fair as int.versus int. Some Yamaha integrateds could beat some Luxmans.. You probably heard the Luxman being helped by better associated equipment, and maybe it was better, but not night and day difference between the amps. Yamaha was pretty good and I compared Lux and Yamaha amps from that period, for months on end; in the comfort of my home.
I also walked into a HiFi shop for a Yamaha, it had just been given a good review, so I bought it on that alone - maybe I should have tried a listening test.
@@sidesup8286 the listening room was setup to so source and speakers could be the same, but different amps. At least for this. Yes, a Yamaha integrated could have sounded better than what i originally looked at- but listening to the Luxman sold me. My roommate had a Yamaha integrated, but i thought the Lux sounded better. But of course I did just spend a bunch of money
Yamaha's can sound a bit on the thin and bright side. Requires some matching. I had a Yamaha M35 power amp which sounded that way, and not that good with most speakers, but with Ohm Walsh speakers the amp sounded like an Ace and the Ohm's sounded better than with any other amp.The top of the line Luxman integrateds of the 1980s were first the Luxman L85V and then the L5. There was a Yamaha integrated with a Class A switch that could have taken either one of them down. More forward sounding but cleaner and more exciting. A Yamaha receiver vs. a Lux integrated would probably be the Luxman. The Luxman L5 makes a fine headphone amp too. Luxman is no longer hobbyist priced like they were in the 1980s. They're probably used by more high end audio reviewers to review speakers more than anything else..
One guy will love his 1000W pro amp with .0001% distortion. Someone else might prefer the sound of their 8W SET amp with 2% distortion. For them that is perfect. One guy might like his 600 HP American muscle car with auto trans and someone else might prefer a 200 HP light sports car with a stick. Something for everyone.
I've used that "real watt" line before. I watch a guy on YT that puts amps through their paces and in most cases until they smoke. At least half of the amps dont come close to the numbers they advertise.
FTC compliance requires preconditioning with a 1kHz tone at one third of the rated RMS output into a resistive 8 ohm load for one hour, then the continuous full-power test can be done. I wish this was still properly enforced and that it also applied to car stereo amplifiers, which it never has.
Interesting topic reminding about the discussion about horsepower and torque. Technically a watt is a watt. A horsepower is a horsepower. If the same standard is used when comparing different equipments it's a physical fact that the same number of power means the same capacity. Same value on paper can be different in reality, though.
This is actually a pretty good comparison. But the differentiator is a motor with a flat or gradual power curve can do more work (make more HP) across a wider rpm range than a really peaky motor that only makes good HP across a couple hundred RPM. It has to stay in that certain RPM range to make any power. Just swap out torque with current and RPM with volts and the same applies to an amp. The peaky amp that doesn't have good current capacity will have more distortion.
Yeah, I always get a chuckle when people said that 'oh, but these aren't normal watts these are (insert brand here) watts. The bathroom scale doesn't know the difference between 200 pounds of fat and 200 pounds of muscle.
@@Roof_Pizza Another analogy that proves the point that it's what makes up the Watts that matters. Try pushing 200 lbs. of fat guy through a small hole compared to 200 lbs. of skinny guy. The scale doesn't know the difference, but the hole sure will!
Wattage doesn’t mean much if the distortion is over 1%. Most amplifiers are usually rated at a certain wattage continuously at a rated distortion level ( percentage). To me a 50 watt/channel amp with very low distortion and high current capacity is much better than one with 300 watts/ch with high distortion with no high current capacity.
@@hoobsgroove If you take the cheap Chinese amp, they specs their amp with One channel driven @ 1K hz Max. peak power into 2 ohms with 10% distorsion. In North America (if I'm not mistaken, we specs our amp based on both channels driven from 20hz to 20,000hz to published distorsion - ex. 50 watts into 8ohms @ .01% distorsion). That makes a huge difference in power perception, quality and so many other items.
@@1957CRAZYDJthat’s the main point here, actually..it’s how you spec the amplifiers. Ultimately, you could define the amplifier parameters in a useful way, or you can do it in a stupid, useless way. Consumers can be steered away from what they really want, because they have no real way of comparing specs that are equivalent.. just what shit sellers want! Ultimately, it amazes me how many people can actually believe that a 100 W $80 amplifier is better than a 100 W $1000 amplifier. The concept is preposterous. You can lead yourself to believe that if you’re too cheap to pay for a good amplifier lol
@@1957CRAZYDJ well yeah there is misleading information out there the Chinese are good at that, but thats standard 1kHz, it's the higher frequency you want to look at in its harmonic distortion, in it's individual harmonics and that doesn't mean it has to be low ideally not on all spectrums like second harmonic.
Back in the day...They used to "rate" amps in RMS (continuous) and IHF (peak) power. RMS was changed to "continuous average power" since there is no such thing as RMS power. (It is NOT RMS voltage * RMS current) The IHF rating standard has long since disappeared..now it's just called "peak power". Today "peak power" seems to be when the amp reaches 10% THD or starts to smoke...whatever comes first.
You are correct in that "RMS power" is an absolutely nonsensical term. However, RMS voltage * RMS current would give you AVERAGE power, which is perfectly useful.
V x A = W.. What ratio are your watts made of ? Watts are not all the same. 100w could be, 100v at 1A or 1V at 100A or 20V @5amps.. Anyway it works out, it's still 100w.. Amp designer has a choice in this.
Ok, so on a related note; I have been eying up Lars+s as a possible eventual upgrade, but have come across discourse online about them being hard to power, but requiring high current, not high wattage (I think the phrase “fast amp” was used somewhere too). Does this actually mean anything? If so, what does one look for on a spec sheet when trying to ascertain if an amp has the requisite puff? (My humanities-forward education has not left me in best shape to work out electrical engineering problems, alas)
A classic Krell KSA 50 power amp with accompanying PAM preamp will have more than double the sound quality of a vintage Fisher receiver with 50 watts per channel also. No one listening to the comparison would think the Fisher sounds 1/2 as good. It doesn't. As for the people,who overrate specs as their Bible, even though every respected audio designer of note EVER, has said that specs are very secondary, I can't help but notice that none of these spec worshippers ever seem to have very good equipment. When the music literally comes alive and sounds alive in my listening room, I think of them sometimes and think "If only they could hear something like this." They must never have. You can get unbelievable realism with the right equipment. If it falls slightly short of absolute realism it's so cool that nobody cares.
Technically speaking, a Watt is always the same and represents 1 Joule of energy per second. Of course like other audio specs, one power number is not very descriptive for audio fidelity.
I very much agree that “watts are watts” electrically but in terms of driving real speakers an amplifier’s power supply imho is maybe the most critical factor and one common place to save money. Good amplifiers with proper power supplies, which are more expensive to produce, decent sized/specified transformer(s) ,good reservoir capacitors and smoothing might nominally be the same watts as a lesser design but will sound very much better.
Please correct me, but aren’t watts just the term and measure to describe the power (voltage + current) of an amp and hence indicate how loud it can make speakers go? They say very, very little of the quality of the sound given that the volume is in the power-range or the specific amplifier. The question in itself doesn’t make sense to me.
For most my listening I don't even hit above 16 watts per channel. Usually sitting around 5 watts. Off of a 75 watt JVC Japan made amp. To me it's the clarity and sound stage that pulls me to certain amps. This amp has even less THD than my Marantz. .007% on the JVC vs .07% on the Marantz. I just got the JVC so am still learning it's sound signature.
I'm jumping in here, and I know it's off subject but I would like to know if a crossover is built for the size of the drivers or the size of the cabinet they are in or both, i have seen speakers that have relatively small crossovers compared to size . I recently pulled down some tower speakers, 6" BASS 2X4" WOOFERS 1" TWEETER and small crossover, and yes i don't know much on this issue, that is why I am asking 😊
When I first started in HiFi retail there were cheap compact brands that used IPP, Instantaneous Peak Power, as a rating. It meant nothing. They'd claim 150Watts IPP and only have a 15 watt output transistor. We joked that was down hill after a lightening strike. That was what drove the FCC to establish power rating specs.
I have a set of computer speakers that say '1200W', however the drivers are only rated for 0.5W!, The '1200W' is not their specs, but a model number, Cheeky B......
There is a big difference between heating up a resistor, and driving the complex load that most speakers present. Stereo Review never figured that out.
Unfortunately it’s marketing. I have a NAD 316 bee integrated amp that I bought about 10 years ago for 300 bucks. Despite the power ratings and glorious reviews by audiophiles this is the worst component I’ve ever owned! I just blew out the right channel on it last week driving a pair of PSB image bookshelf speakers rated at 6 ohms. Obviously the impedance severely dipped and the amp didn’t have the reserve power. Sorry if I’ve offended any NAD fans. I’m going to save up and buy a PS audio amp. I trust Paul’s advice.
Because you have very low switching noise from the transistors, looking forward to the music fidelity A1 coming back out I don't know if that's going to be 20 watts class a should be nice
I have a single ended valve amp, specced to be 5W a channel, however much above 2W and it starts doing really crazy things to the audio, about the only thing that remained of my test tone was it's frequency. I'm guessing 'they' used a tube good for 5W, feeding a speaker transformer also rated for 5W, all running from the specified supply voltages, and said 'this is a 5W amp' without actually measuring it. So the lies go way back. I also have a pair of computer speakers that say '1200W' on them, the only way you could get that sort of power is if they were hit by lightning. The drivers in there are 0.5W 'trannie speakers'. I later figured it out, '1200W' is not their specs, rather than their model number. - Cheeky B%^$strards.
Isn't the real issue here simply that commerce of consumer goods often relies on the customer not being very knowledge about the item that they buy? By definition, 1 Watt = 1 Joule/second. So a question such as asked in this video is really misleading, but the customer only knows amps by the word "Watt", when in reality amplifiers require many parameters to be summarized properly. Customers in general are not interested in engineering standards, in definitions of performance and measurements, etc. *So the marketers long ago decided to sell products based on a few words.*
Correct , most gear is shit these days , I cannot fork out money on new gear , if I could Paul would have it 😊 so I just keep rebuilding my old NAD power amps, power envelope circuit of the old NAD is what runs my life
The sound quality between two 50 watt amplifiers can be big! and it is incredibly common to write much more watts on the paper than what the amplifier can do in reality. A good example is ebay where almost all amplifier boards are measured in 10% THD. Total harmonic distortion when you msksimum should be 1%. 100 Watt sells better than the 50w does! Hypex ucd180 cannot handle 180w but only 130 watts
Not sure about that.. Also depends on what PSU you have, off course.. I once used a 1200 VA toroid with hypex ucd400, and it could almost blow the roof off 🤪😂😂
Might get myself in some trouble here, but comparing amps just on numbers alone is like comparing women’s looks based on their measurements. She might have great measurements but what does she look like? Two amps might spec the same, but what does it sound like?
Back in the 1980s it wasn't unusual for integrated amps to have a a switch you could press, and compare back and forth Class AB versus Class A. At first it didn't seem like too big a deal of a difference, but the more familiar you became with the sound; Class A would win out and the difference seemed larger. When you would switch to Class A, you would actually be listening to less watts, because it had less watts in the Class A mode. So less watts actually sounded better than more watts. Bur they were different watts. Audio should not be a numbers game. Don't reduce it to numbers. Getting just the sound you want is more important than what % improvement you think something made. I have speakers that are 75% better than another pair. That's a huge quality difference. But believe it or not, certain recordings sound better on the lesser speakers. When the particular characteristics of a recording compliment the lesser speakers more than the better ones. Some speakers can make certain recordings sound like they're clashing with the environment.
They were the same watts, but you only used a few with A and no more with AB. You hear different circuit and distortion, but the same watts. Power, measured in Watts, is a calculation from tension (voltage), (current) and (phase). Amplifiers are source of tension, not watts or current. Amps don't «push» watts. It's the speaker that takes an amount of current for that tension, which give watts as a mathematical operation. So watts are the same because the speakers are the same, like in your home, the toaster take the same watts regardless the powerplant. However, which is not the same are the quality of sound and the specs of some brands. One amplifier might claim 100 W for 0.02% distortion and another 100 W for 1%. ¿"RMS", peak, %THD? The second one won't have as much power than the first at the same distortion, and can even sound better. In fact, some audiophiles say that more distortion is better: "my amp has 1% distortion and sounds great, because distortion is...". Is what? Quality distortion ? The brand spec 1% to claim more watts. However, that listener is probably using only a few watts that have only 0,01% of distortion, not 1%. The different units of sensitivity are also misleading. A lot of myths embraced by audiophiles.
@@fookingsog I had one of those monster amps back in the day (Yamaha ca-2010) and there was indeed a Class A switch, I must say that I thought it was rather rare and everything I ever read about it agreed with my feeling that sonically it didn't do much. It also had speaker sets A, B as well as A&B.
Yes, Fooking is obviously no one that has any idea what he's talking about. Trying to make someone else look like the dumb one. The button said Class A and was not a speaker selector switch. Plus it wrote all about the Class A switch in the owners manual. The speaker selector knob had the words Speaker A and Speaker B and was a rotary knob you turned, a rotary switch you rotated. The difference between Class A and Class A/B sound on my equipment was that Class A operation, where the transistors stay full on and don't switch on and off with program demands, was that it sounded purer. The sound was noticeably cleaner and didn't have switching distortion, also called notch distortion which sounded similar to TIM distortion, which Matti Otala. who designed the Citation XX amp, did a famous paper on. I think Class A made enough improvement on my system that I could have identified it without knowing what switch position was on. A guy on one of the forums said that he couldn't hear the difference, but his wife could. I wouldn't say it was like night and day, but the tone colors sounded a bit nicer due to the improved purity of the sound. A lot depends on the quality of the system and the users experience in perception. Class A power amps were an expensive breed. Krell's amps were Class A and many others. Telefunken made some integrated amps that were obviously Class A from the heat of the cabinet, and their amazing purity and lack of audible switching distortion. Telefunken amps are the only Class A amps I can think of which didn't advertise the fact that they were Class A. Some amps run in Class A up to a "significant" watt level and above that, switch over to Class A/B. Class A is a plus to me, but there is more to an amp than what class of operation it runs in.
Hi Paul; "boomer talking". When I was getting into this, watts were measured R.M.S. into a specified impedance, with distortion rated within a frequency range. (Real watts)
3:10 if an amplifier says it is 100 watts at 4ohms then it should be able to do 100watts continuously on a SINE WAVE (usually 1KHZ) for at least 1hr but gets bragging rights if it can do it 8hrs without thermal issues.
1 KHz is simplistic and non-subjective. It should be "Pink Noise" for 1 hour at whatever volume level deemed necessary to reach a conclusion. Nobody listens to a 1 KHz sine wave for an hour and neither does anyone listen to Pink Noise for an hour, yet the "Pink Noise" would pass as a more rigorous test!!!
Does anybody know why in the 60's British speaker manufacturers would quote two power ratings for their speakers ..? One would show 15 Watts and in brackets it would have 30 Watts USA .... just as an example ...
Let's say we create an environment that everything is the same (speaker cables, speakers and the music source) and try to compare a mid-level power amplifier and very high-end power amplifier at 1/4th of their rated power. Can anyone tell the difference objectively?
No! Some amps deliver more watts than they are rated ie. Marantz 2270 . And sound quality is way more involved that just power output, quality of parts, wiring, noise isolation, ect.
Is a measurement of power, so YES they are all the same. It’s like saying I have a car that has 50hp and a truck that has 50hp but saying the truck has stronger hp simply because it is a truck is laughable. A HP is a HP which can also be converted to WATTS, 748watts is a HP or something like that.
My "50 HP Engine" has "direct fuel injection", an "Oil Separator Can" between the PCV and engine and a "Dual Scroll Turbo"!!!🤣😂😆 ...now what did you say *YOUR* engine had?!🤭🙄
Not quite how that works. People bring up HP all the time but it just doesn't translate to power amp "watts". There are a lot of different ways manufacturers measure watts. There's also a lot of different transformers and power supplies feeding the current. If you want good dynamics and bass you'd better have something backing and feeding those watts. There's more to an amp than watts, I assure you.
Well of course they may not sound the same, most amplifiers use active xovers before the preamp section so yes that will make it sound a BIT different. 😂
NAD (as others) did a Class G, which had a second "Temp" higher voltage rail which gave more power, but for a very limited time. Not sure how the FCC deals with this. Works with old music, but the compression applied today renderes it useless on a lot of new recordings. Bottom line is both channels driven. There was also a sustained sine at 33% power test which could cause some designs to thermally overheat.
We're not talking about the FCC ("Federal Communications Commission") which has a very different purpose. It was the FTC ("Federal Trade Commission") that made the rules for amps. I can't post links here but you can google "ftc amplifier-rule".
2:25 Come on Paul, set the standard! There is no such thing as RMS Wattage. It bugs me when marketing people take engineering terms and get them wrapped around their neck, but you should know better! We take RMS (root-mean-squared) values of voltage and current waveforms so that we have a handy figure to use in P=VI and P=I²R calculations and calculate AVERAGE power. You do not want to calculate the rms value of a power waveform. This produces a result that is not physically meaningful. Fight the good fight!
RMS rating says little since it is no exact standard. FTC watts (lkke NAD etc) messure all channels driven 20-20.000Hz while most cheap brands messure at 1 channel driven and 1kHz. So yeah... A 50 watt amp can beat the living shit out of a wannabe "100 watt" amp. Seen than MANY times. I rather figure out how big and what type of power supply is and take it from there. I.e on a A/B amp ir reciver I calculate about 40-50% power loss. On class D it should be about 10% loss in general. And then knowing how big it actually is gives me a more realistic wattage output.
I remember in the 90s - my Harman Kardon 40 watt amp absolutely blowing the doors off my friends 120 watt Sony amp. The "high current" designation of my amp probably had something to do with it. It had a lot more poke. The Klipsch speakers we were driving were practically getting torn out of their frames and played much louder and with more force than my friends, no matter how hard he cranked it.
No simpel all whatt ar not the same ! If your whatts you have need over kill if not it wil not be the same as a overkil power i put a 100 watt ring transformer in my diy preamp. End i had a 30w in there you have way more overhead end sounds way better
The competition probably comes down to a 70s class A or A/B amplifier Vs. a modern class D amplifier. If that's the case, the class D run of the mill mass consumer amp will lose every time. At least to my ears.
Pay attention to how they are rated, when "100 watts" will have "1khz @6ohm 2ch" that means test with only 2ch(somtimes 1) at 6 ohms when you will use 8 most of the time and only at the frequency of 1000hz and peak. When plugging in more speakers, using 8 ohms, and playing all frequencies that power will go down dramatically. My NAD T758V3 can do over 200watts @2ch 4ohms, but is only 60watts @8ohms when all channels are connected.
Paul is right ... and wrong... on this one. In a world that works right 35 watts should be 35 watts and that would be the end of it. Sad to say this world seldom works right... Advertisers know that big numbers sell products... so it's a game of "how dishonest can we get away with?" that has very little to do with the products being sold. One current example of "Watt Wheedling" are the current batch of Chinese companies claiming 300 watts per channel from mini-amplifiers. Get one hooked up on a test bench and they measure in at 20% of the claim, or less. But these cheap little Chip-Amps are flying off the shelves world wide. Why? Because consumers don't bother to educate themselves about the stuff they buy. With only a little bit of actual knowledge they would see right through the deceptions. BUT! That same little bit of knowledge would also tell the consumer they are buying a perfectly nice 60 watt per channel amplifier that fits in the palm of their hand, at a bargain price. So, why don't these companies advertise "XXXYYYY chip configured as WWW watts per channel" and give their customers real information? Because the truth does not sell amplifiers.
Add in "sustained wattage" vs "impulse wattage" and over what frequency range??? Use these cheap little amps for a band-pass multi-amp setup and they do quite well!!!--not so well on wide bandwidth sustained output. Case In Point: I have a little Nobsound G2 Pro 300W that I use as a sub amp that will absolutely put out!!! Tested with a Rockville 6.5" in a ported box. Power source was an EGO Power 400W pure sine wave inverter. Several times, the Nobsound caused a red caution light on the inverter. You know what that means. And zero distortion. Period.
Yes all Watts are the same. Its clearly defined. Watt isnt a measure of 'how good' something sounds. There are lots of ways on how and where to measure the power. There are standards for that. Theres also efficiency of speakers. No good information in the video for this claiming to be some pro audio channel. Laughable channel.
Наука
Back in the 80s I went to the local stereo store intending to buy a Yamaha receiver. It had great specs, loads of features and from reading (not listening yet) appeared to be an excellent choice in the price range.
My buddy worked there and said, ‘Yes, it is a good on. But lets go into the listening room’.
So we listened to the Yamaha, then he said- ‘Just for comparison, listen to this one’ (same speakers, same source.
It was light night and day!
The other was a Luxman. It cost twice as much and was an integrated amp with very few features. But sounded so much better.
I bought the Luxman (still have it)
A receiver versus an integrated amp isn't as fair as int.versus int. Some Yamaha integrateds could beat some Luxmans.. You probably heard the Luxman being helped by better associated equipment, and maybe it was better, but not night and day difference between the amps. Yamaha was pretty good and I compared Lux and Yamaha amps from that period, for months on end; in the comfort of my home.
I also walked into a HiFi shop for a Yamaha, it had just been given a good review, so I bought it on that alone - maybe I should have tried a listening test.
@@sidesup8286 the listening room was setup to so source and speakers could be the same, but different amps. At least for this.
Yes, a Yamaha integrated could have sounded better than what i originally looked at- but listening to the Luxman sold me. My roommate had a Yamaha integrated, but i thought the Lux sounded better. But of course I did just spend a bunch of money
Yamaha's can sound a bit on the thin and bright side. Requires some matching. I had a Yamaha M35 power amp which sounded that way, and not that good with most speakers, but with Ohm Walsh speakers the amp sounded like an Ace and the Ohm's sounded better than with any other amp.The top of the line Luxman integrateds of the 1980s were first the Luxman L85V and then the L5. There was a Yamaha integrated with a Class A switch that could have taken either one of them down. More forward sounding but cleaner and more exciting. A Yamaha receiver vs. a Lux integrated would probably be the Luxman. The Luxman L5 makes a fine headphone amp too. Luxman is no longer hobbyist priced like they were in the 1980s. They're probably used by more high end audio reviewers to review speakers more than anything else..
Yea original pre-Alpine Luxman was king, especially the Laboratory series like the L11 integrated for example.
One guy will love his 1000W pro amp with .0001% distortion. Someone else might prefer the sound of their 8W SET amp with 2% distortion. For them that is perfect.
One guy might like his 600 HP American muscle car with auto trans and someone else might prefer a 200 HP light sports car with a stick.
Something for everyone.
Well said.
I've used that "real watt" line before.
I watch a guy on YT that puts amps through their paces and in most cases until they smoke. At least half of the amps dont come close to the numbers they advertise.
FTC compliance requires preconditioning with a 1kHz tone at one third of the rated RMS output
into a resistive 8 ohm load for one hour, then the continuous full-power test can be done.
I wish this was still properly enforced and that it also applied to car stereo amplifiers, which it never has.
Like Decware Audio’s slogan used to say; or still says.
*”If the first watt sucks, why continue?”*
Dampening factor plays a part in the way an amp proforms, people often forget about dampening factor.
I place a damp sponge on one corner of my amp to increase its "dampening" factor.
No not all Watts are the same
The one in Southern California, Watts, you would not want to drive through at night..😳😀🙄
Ha! 😁😃
Interesting topic reminding about the discussion about horsepower and torque. Technically a watt is a watt. A horsepower is a horsepower.
If the same standard is used when comparing different equipments it's a physical fact that the same number of power means the same capacity.
Same value on paper can be different in reality, though.
This is actually a pretty good comparison. But the differentiator is a motor with a flat or gradual power curve can do more work (make more HP) across a wider rpm range than a really peaky motor that only makes good HP across a couple hundred RPM. It has to stay in that certain RPM range to make any power. Just swap out torque with current and RPM with volts and the same applies to an amp. The peaky amp that doesn't have good current capacity will have more distortion.
Yeah, I always get a chuckle when people said that 'oh, but these aren't normal watts these are (insert brand here) watts. The bathroom scale doesn't know the difference between 200 pounds of fat and 200 pounds of muscle.
@@Roof_Pizza Another analogy that proves the point that it's what makes up the Watts that matters. Try pushing 200 lbs. of fat guy through a small hole compared to 200 lbs. of skinny guy. The scale doesn't know the difference, but the hole sure will!
@@slode1693 Try pushing 200 pounds up a hill. Go ahead and complain that the fat is harder. Pfft.
@roofpizza1250 that analogy doesn't quite work when talking about watts. It's not that clear-cut.
Wattage doesn’t mean much if the distortion is over 1%. Most amplifiers are usually rated at a certain wattage continuously at a rated distortion level ( percentage). To me a 50 watt/channel amp with very low distortion and high current capacity is much better than one with 300 watts/ch with high distortion with no high current capacity.
I got all pro amps and easily can push out over 300 watts and less than 1 percentage distortion
One percent is nothing 5% maybe
@@hoobsgroove If you take the cheap Chinese amp, they specs their amp with One channel driven @ 1K hz Max. peak power into 2 ohms with 10% distorsion. In North America (if I'm not mistaken, we specs our amp based on both channels driven from 20hz to 20,000hz to published distorsion - ex. 50 watts into 8ohms @ .01% distorsion). That makes a huge difference in power perception, quality and so many other items.
@@1957CRAZYDJthat’s the main point here, actually..it’s how you spec the amplifiers. Ultimately, you could define the amplifier parameters in a useful way, or you can do it in a stupid, useless way. Consumers can be steered away from what they really want, because they have no real way of comparing specs that are equivalent.. just what shit sellers want! Ultimately, it amazes me how many people can actually believe that a 100 W $80 amplifier is better than a 100 W $1000 amplifier. The concept is preposterous. You can lead yourself to believe that if you’re too cheap to pay for a good amplifier lol
@@1957CRAZYDJ well yeah there is misleading information out there the Chinese are good at that, but thats standard 1kHz, it's the higher frequency you want to look at in its harmonic distortion, in it's individual harmonics and that doesn't mean it has to be low ideally not on all spectrums like second harmonic.
Back in the day...They used to "rate" amps in RMS (continuous) and IHF (peak) power.
RMS was changed to "continuous average power" since there is no such thing as RMS power. (It is NOT RMS voltage * RMS current)
The IHF rating standard has long since disappeared..now it's just called "peak power".
Today "peak power" seems to be when the amp reaches 10% THD or starts to smoke...whatever comes first.
You are correct in that "RMS power" is an absolutely nonsensical term. However, RMS voltage * RMS current would give you AVERAGE power, which is perfectly useful.
6 watts in my SET tube amp are far different from the watts in my monoblocks
Paul, please please tell me where you got that great rca victrola/modern electronics poster . . . it's awesome. I gotta have it! Thank you, Larry
V x A = W.. What ratio are your watts made of ? Watts are not all the same. 100w could be, 100v at 1A or 1V at 100A or 20V @5amps.. Anyway it works out, it's still 100w.. Amp designer has a choice in this.
Ok, so on a related note; I have been eying up Lars+s as a possible eventual upgrade, but have come across discourse online about them being hard to power, but requiring high current, not high wattage (I think the phrase “fast amp” was used somewhere too). Does this actually mean anything? If so, what does one look for on a spec sheet when trying to ascertain if an amp has the requisite puff? (My humanities-forward education has not left me in best shape to work out electrical engineering problems, alas)
A classic Krell KSA 50 power amp with accompanying PAM preamp will have more than double the sound quality of a vintage Fisher receiver with 50 watts per channel also. No one listening to the comparison would think the Fisher sounds 1/2 as good. It doesn't.
As for the people,who overrate specs as their Bible, even though every respected audio designer of note EVER, has said that specs are very secondary, I can't help but notice that none of these spec worshippers ever seem to have very good equipment. When the music literally comes alive and sounds alive in my listening room, I think of them sometimes and think "If only they could hear something like this." They must never have. You can get unbelievable realism with the right equipment. If it falls slightly short of absolute realism it's so cool that nobody cares.
It's the first Watt that you should pay most attention to, and that can be very different between equipment. 😄
Spoken like Nelson Pass.
Watt R U Talkin' A'Boot?!🤔🤣😂😆
The "First Watt" as opposed to the "Last Watt"?! 🤔🤣😂😆
@@HiFiman4u It might have been him that used to say it first, I'm terrible with names. 🙈😂
@@fookingsog It's about sensitivity of the speakers and usual listening volume. 👍
Technically speaking, a Watt is always the same and represents 1 Joule of energy per second. Of course like other audio specs, one power number is not very descriptive for audio fidelity.
I very much agree that “watts are watts” electrically but in terms of driving real speakers an amplifier’s power supply imho is maybe the most critical factor and one common place to save money. Good amplifiers with proper power supplies, which are more expensive to produce, decent sized/specified transformer(s) ,good reservoir capacitors and smoothing might nominally be the same watts as a lesser design but will sound very much better.
Please correct me, but aren’t watts just the term and measure to describe the power (voltage + current) of an amp and hence indicate how loud it can make speakers go? They say very, very little of the quality of the sound given that the volume is in the power-range or the specific amplifier. The question in itself doesn’t make sense to me.
For most my listening I don't even hit above 16 watts per channel. Usually sitting around 5 watts. Off of a 75 watt JVC Japan made amp. To me it's the clarity and sound stage that pulls me to certain amps. This amp has even less THD than my Marantz. .007% on the JVC vs .07% on the Marantz. I just got the JVC so am still learning it's sound signature.
I'm jumping in here, and I know it's off subject but I would like to know if a crossover is built for the size of the drivers or the size of the cabinet they are in or both, i have seen speakers that have relatively small crossovers compared to size . I recently pulled down some tower speakers, 6" BASS 2X4" WOOFERS 1" TWEETER and small crossover, and yes i don't know much on this issue, that is why I am asking 😊
When I first started in HiFi retail there were cheap compact brands that used IPP, Instantaneous Peak Power, as a rating. It meant nothing. They'd claim 150Watts IPP and only have a 15 watt output transistor. We joked that was down hill after a lightening strike.
That was what drove the FCC to establish power rating specs.
I have a set of computer speakers that say '1200W', however the drivers are only rated for 0.5W!, The '1200W' is not their specs, but a model number, Cheeky B......
There is a big difference between heating up a resistor, and driving the complex load that most speakers present. Stereo Review never figured that out.
Oooh dear, I bought an amp on the words of a reviewer.
@@paulstubbs7678 Did you like the amp, and keep it?
Unfortunately it’s marketing. I have a NAD 316 bee integrated amp that I bought about 10 years ago for 300 bucks. Despite the power ratings and glorious reviews by audiophiles this is the worst component I’ve ever owned! I just blew out the right channel on it last week driving a pair of PSB image bookshelf speakers rated at 6 ohms. Obviously the impedance severely dipped and the amp didn’t have the reserve power. Sorry if I’ve offended any NAD fans. I’m going to save up and buy a PS audio amp. I trust Paul’s advice.
Try the Mission Cyrus 1 or 2 amplifiers or NAD C300/316. Low power amplifiers with amazing sound quality.
Because you have very low switching noise from the transistors, looking forward to the music fidelity A1 coming back out I don't know if that's going to be 20 watts class a should be nice
Lol could the FTC loop hole be that it consumes 100 watts for one hour but only puts out 20 or 30 watts of sound.
I have a single ended valve amp, specced to be 5W a channel, however much above 2W and it starts doing really crazy things to the audio, about the only thing that remained of my test tone was it's frequency. I'm guessing 'they' used a tube good for 5W, feeding a speaker transformer also rated for 5W, all running from the specified supply voltages, and said 'this is a 5W amp' without actually measuring it. So the lies go way back.
I also have a pair of computer speakers that say '1200W' on them, the only way you could get that sort of power is if they were hit by lightning. The drivers in there are 0.5W 'trannie speakers'. I later figured it out, '1200W' is not their specs, rather than their model number. - Cheeky B%^$strards.
Isn't the real issue here simply that commerce of consumer goods often relies on the customer not being very knowledge about the item that they buy? By definition, 1 Watt = 1 Joule/second. So a question such as asked in this video is really misleading, but the customer only knows amps by the word "Watt", when in reality amplifiers require many parameters to be summarized properly. Customers in general are not interested in engineering standards, in definitions of performance and measurements, etc. *So the marketers long ago decided to sell products based on a few words.*
Correct , most gear is shit these days , I cannot fork out money on new gear , if I could Paul would have it 😊 so I just keep rebuilding my old NAD power amps, power envelope circuit of the old NAD is what runs my life
The sound quality between two 50 watt amplifiers can be big! and it is incredibly common to write much more watts on the paper than what the amplifier can do in reality. A good example is ebay where almost all amplifier boards are measured in 10% THD. Total harmonic distortion when you msksimum should be 1%. 100 Watt sells better than the 50w does!
Hypex ucd180 cannot handle 180w but only 130 watts
Hypex ucd180 is rated at 120 WpC in 8Ω
@@5starmaniac
Hypex ucd180.
It is written
180W @ 4Ω, THD=1%.
But in reality 130w 4 ohms.
Not sure about that.. Also depends on what PSU you have, off course.. I once used a 1200 VA toroid with hypex ucd400, and it could almost blow the roof off 🤪😂😂
@@5starmaniac I use the recommended +/- 45v and 500 watt smps power supply that does not drop and 2x 1000uf capasitor
@@ford1546 Then you should have the fully rated wattage 👌🤗
Might get myself in some trouble here, but comparing amps just on numbers alone is like comparing women’s looks based on their measurements. She might have great measurements but what does she look like? Two amps might spec the same, but what does it sound like?
Like... there's a lady who is a broadcaster who has a face made for radio?
@@jpatrickmoore5158 lol you could say that.
That's watt she said!
There's your dynamic range pick watts, I'm not sure what the figure is for 35W DB rating I guess about 110db
Back in the 1980s it wasn't unusual for integrated amps to have a a switch you could press, and compare back and forth Class AB versus Class A. At first it didn't seem like too big a deal of a difference, but the more familiar you became with the sound; Class A would win out and the difference seemed larger. When you would switch to Class A, you would actually be listening to less watts, because it had less watts in the Class A mode. So less watts actually sounded better than more watts. Bur they were different watts.
Audio should not be a numbers game. Don't reduce it to numbers. Getting just the sound you want is more important than what % improvement you think something made. I have speakers that are 75% better than another pair. That's a huge quality difference. But believe it or not, certain recordings sound better on the lesser speakers. When the particular characteristics of a recording compliment the lesser speakers more than the better ones. Some speakers can make certain recordings sound like they're clashing with the environment.
They were the same watts, but you only used a few with A and no more with AB. You hear different circuit and distortion, but the same watts. Power, measured in Watts, is a calculation from tension (voltage), (current) and (phase). Amplifiers are source of tension, not watts or current. Amps don't «push» watts. It's the speaker that takes an amount of current for that tension, which give watts as a mathematical operation. So watts are the same because the speakers are the same, like in your home, the toaster take the same watts regardless the powerplant. However, which is not the same are the quality of sound and the specs of some brands. One amplifier might claim 100 W for 0.02% distortion and another 100 W for 1%. ¿"RMS", peak, %THD? The second one won't have as much power than the first at the same distortion, and can even sound better. In fact, some audiophiles say that more distortion is better: "my amp has 1% distortion and sounds great, because distortion is...". Is what? Quality distortion ? The brand spec 1% to claim more watts. However, that listener is probably using only a few watts that have only 0,01% of distortion, not 1%. The different units of sensitivity are also misleading. A lot of myths embraced by audiophiles.
No. That's speaker sets "A" & "B"!!!🙄
@@fookingsog I had one of those monster amps back in the day (Yamaha ca-2010) and there was indeed a Class A switch, I must say that I thought it was rather rare and everything I ever read about it agreed with my feeling that sonically it didn't do much. It also had speaker sets A, B as well as A&B.
@@Jorge-Fernandez-Lopez Mr, Lopez: Thank you! May this be a, "True Oxymoron?!" "Quality Distortion!"
Yes, Fooking is obviously no one that has any idea what he's talking about. Trying to make someone else look like the dumb one. The button said Class A and was not a speaker selector switch. Plus it wrote all about the Class A switch in the owners manual. The speaker selector knob had the words Speaker A and Speaker B and was a rotary knob you turned, a rotary switch you rotated. The difference between Class A and Class A/B sound on my equipment was that Class A operation, where the transistors stay full on and don't switch on and off with program demands, was that it sounded purer. The sound was noticeably cleaner and didn't have switching distortion, also called notch distortion which sounded similar to TIM distortion, which Matti Otala. who designed the Citation XX amp, did a famous paper on. I think Class A made enough improvement on my system that I could have identified it without knowing what switch position was on. A guy on one of the forums said that he couldn't hear the difference, but his wife could. I wouldn't say it was like night and day, but the tone colors sounded a bit nicer due to the improved purity of the sound. A lot depends on the quality of the system and the users experience in perception.
Class A power amps were an expensive breed. Krell's amps were Class A and many others. Telefunken made some integrated amps that were obviously Class A from the heat of the cabinet, and their amazing purity and lack of audible switching distortion. Telefunken amps are the only Class A amps I can think of which didn't advertise the fact that they were Class A. Some amps run in Class A up to a "significant" watt level and above that, switch over to Class A/B. Class A is a plus to me, but there is more to an amp than what class of operation it runs in.
Hi Paul; "boomer talking". When I was getting into this, watts were measured R.M.S. into a specified impedance, with distortion rated within a frequency range. (Real watts)
FTC document, 16 CFR, Chapter 1, Part 432. Update 2022, see link below.
As you can't post links here: One can just google "FTC amplifier rule".
You could have "Linear watt" and "Weak watt" which means that one amplifier have 280 watt in 1 ohm and the other amplifier burns up in 1 ohm.
I got an amp like that will take a 1 ohm load but I got to kick some AC up.
3:10 if an amplifier says it is 100 watts at 4ohms then it should be able to do 100watts continuously on a SINE WAVE (usually 1KHZ) for at least 1hr but gets bragging rights if it can do it 8hrs without thermal issues.
1 KHz is simplistic and non-subjective. It should be "Pink Noise" for 1 hour at whatever volume level deemed necessary to reach a conclusion. Nobody listens to a 1 KHz sine wave for an hour and neither does anyone listen to Pink Noise for an hour, yet the "Pink Noise" would pass as a more rigorous test!!!
@@fookingsog they why not play a movie?
Ouch.
Does anybody know why in the 60's British speaker manufacturers would quote two power ratings for their speakers ..? One would show 15 Watts and in brackets it would have 30 Watts USA .... just as an example ...
It could reflect the amount of current required at a lower supply voltage, if UK at 220V AC vs. USA at 210V AC.
@@jeremiahchamberlin4499 no ... I'm talking about Watts delivered to the speaker .... not total power consumption from the AC supply 🥹
Let's say we create an environment that everything is the same (speaker cables, speakers and the music source) and try to compare a mid-level power amplifier and very high-end power amplifier at 1/4th of their rated power. Can anyone tell the difference objectively?
No! Some amps deliver more watts than they are rated ie. Marantz 2270 . And sound quality is way more involved that just power output, quality of parts, wiring, noise isolation, ect.
Is a measurement of power, so YES they are all the same. It’s like saying I have a car that has 50hp and a truck that has 50hp but saying the truck has stronger hp simply because it is a truck is laughable. A HP is a HP which can also be converted to WATTS, 748watts is a HP or something like that.
My "50 HP Engine" has "direct fuel injection", an "Oil Separator Can" between the PCV and engine and a "Dual Scroll Turbo"!!!🤣😂😆 ...now what did you say *YOUR* engine had?!🤭🙄
Not quite how that works. People bring up HP all the time but it just doesn't translate to power amp "watts".
There are a lot of different ways manufacturers measure watts. There's also a lot of different transformers and power supplies feeding the current. If you want good dynamics and bass you'd better have something backing and feeding those watts.
There's more to an amp than watts, I assure you.
Watts are the mathematical product of amperes multiplied by voltage.
Watts are Watts! It is the Amp. Look for WARMTH!
Well of course they may not sound the same, most amplifiers use active xovers before the preamp section so yes that will make it sound a BIT different. 😂
NAD (as others) did a Class G, which had a second "Temp" higher voltage rail which gave more power, but for a very limited time. Not sure how the FCC deals with this. Works with old music, but the compression applied today renderes it useless on a lot of new recordings. Bottom line is both channels driven. There was also a sustained sine at 33% power test which could cause some designs to thermally overheat.
We're not talking about the FCC ("Federal Communications Commission") which has a very different purpose. It was the FTC ("Federal Trade Commission") that made the rules for amps. I can't post links here but you can google "ftc amplifier-rule".
I have never had any issues with my nad power amps , just a recap and new relays , all 1980s built .
Can I get 20k Watts mimicked or 40k Watts or more! Just mimicked effects on a switch!? 21st century!?
I think some of you people have been missing a lot of watts for a long time..🤔😀
2:25 Come on Paul, set the standard! There is no such thing as RMS Wattage. It bugs me when marketing people take engineering terms and get them wrapped around their neck, but you should know better!
We take RMS (root-mean-squared) values of voltage and current waveforms so that we have a handy figure to use in P=VI and P=I²R calculations and calculate AVERAGE power.
You do not want to calculate the rms value of a power waveform. This produces a result that is not physically meaningful. Fight the good fight!
and so can I buy the cheap amp? and why are they so expensive?
Not enough technical details. Didnt mention pmpo/rms
Is a calorie a calorie?
From a scientific standpoint, yes. From a nutritional standpoint, what is on the label is actually kilocalorie.
It's not about the watts, it's about the power supply and the ability to bleed off the heat.
How about efficiency and the ability for an amplifier to better convert the power supply into sound and *NOT* heat???🤔🙄
...just like a "Power Inverter" that transforms 14VDC into a 120VAC power with a 60Hz pure sine wave...not a modified sine wave!!!
RMS rating says little since it is no exact standard.
FTC watts (lkke NAD etc) messure all channels driven 20-20.000Hz while most cheap brands messure at 1 channel driven and 1kHz. So yeah... A 50 watt amp can beat the living shit out of a wannabe "100 watt" amp. Seen than MANY times. I rather figure out how big and what type of power supply is and take it from there. I.e on a A/B amp ir reciver I calculate about 40-50% power loss. On class D it should be about 10% loss in general. And then knowing how big it actually is gives me a more realistic wattage output.
The watts in Chinese made amps sound soft. Noodle soft like.
Marketing hype. That's how the Chyknees roll!!!😂
I remember in the 90s - my Harman Kardon 40 watt amp absolutely blowing the doors off my friends 120 watt Sony amp. The "high current" designation of my amp probably had something to do with it. It had a lot more poke. The Klipsch speakers we were driving were practically getting torn out of their frames and played much louder and with more force than my friends, no matter how hard he cranked it.
No simpel all whatt ar not the same ! If your whatts you have need over kill if not it wil not be the same as a overkil power i put a 100 watt ring transformer in my diy preamp. End i had a 30w in there you have way more overhead end sounds way better
The competition probably comes down to a 70s class A or A/B amplifier Vs. a modern class D amplifier. If that's the case, the class D run of the mill mass consumer amp will lose every time. At least to my ears.
I bet it will lose ever time you know which is which. Double blind you couldn't tell the difference.
Pay attention to how they are rated, when "100 watts" will have "1khz @6ohm 2ch" that means test with only 2ch(somtimes 1) at 6 ohms when you will use 8 most of the time and only at the frequency of 1000hz and peak. When plugging in more speakers, using 8 ohms, and playing all frequencies that power will go down dramatically. My NAD T758V3 can do over 200watts @2ch 4ohms, but is only 60watts @8ohms when all channels are connected.
Alan Watts 🔈
Hifi is like a quality meal... you can't judge the quality by looking at the quantity !
And at the end, quality is just the better choice to make...
Paul is right ... and wrong... on this one.
In a world that works right 35 watts should be 35 watts and that would be the end of it.
Sad to say this world seldom works right...
Advertisers know that big numbers sell products... so it's a game of "how dishonest can we get away with?" that has very little to do with the products being sold.
One current example of "Watt Wheedling" are the current batch of Chinese companies claiming 300 watts per channel from mini-amplifiers. Get one hooked up on a test bench and they measure in at 20% of the claim, or less. But these cheap little Chip-Amps are flying off the shelves world wide.
Why?
Because consumers don't bother to educate themselves about the stuff they buy. With only a little bit of actual knowledge they would see right through the deceptions.
BUT!
That same little bit of knowledge would also tell the consumer they are buying a perfectly nice 60 watt per channel amplifier that fits in the palm of their hand, at a bargain price.
So, why don't these companies advertise "XXXYYYY chip configured as WWW watts per channel" and give their customers real information?
Because the truth does not sell amplifiers.
Add in "sustained wattage" vs "impulse wattage" and over what frequency range??? Use these cheap little amps for a band-pass multi-amp setup and they do quite well!!!--not so well on wide bandwidth sustained output. Case In Point: I have a little Nobsound G2 Pro 300W that I use as a sub amp that will absolutely put out!!! Tested with a Rockville 6.5" in a ported box. Power source was an EGO Power 400W pure sine wave inverter. Several times, the Nobsound caused a red caution light on the inverter. You know what that means. And zero distortion. Period.
@@fookingsog
Why would you use a battery pack to run these things?
Pure Marketing Hype. A "Watt" of a "dynamic load" based on what? Speaker Impedance? A specific test frequency? It's Whack-A-Mole Marketing Genius!!!🙄
Horrible explanation
Yes all Watts are the same. Its clearly defined. Watt isnt a measure of 'how good' something sounds. There are lots of ways on how and where to measure the power. There are standards for that. Theres also efficiency of speakers. No good information in the video for this claiming to be some pro audio channel. Laughable channel.