Now, on to that "new watts" and "old watts" thing.
Of course a watt's a watt, isn't it? Assuming you mean watts RMS, that is. I remember in the late 60's and early 70's Sears used to sell their brand of stereos, and advertise them in PTP (peak to peak) watts, meaning that something rated ptp was like 100 watts; if rated by the industry standard RMS (root mean square), it was under 20.
But, really, a watt isn't a watt. We all know that a measures power, which is voltage (volts) times current (amps). What you want in a stereo is something with high current capability. So, you might have two amps, each rated 20 watts RMS, but if one has high current capability it will sound louder. Or, to be more precise, you'll be able to play it louder before it starts clipping, because high current capability means that it will handle peaks much better. Sometimes a very good low power amp will have peaks in the hundreds of watts, if only for milliseconds (which is all you often need).
I have a small English amp by a small company called Creek. It's rated at 20 watts per channel into 8 ohms. It has fairly high current capability. It can get very loud, and sound very good.
Of course, I use it with Klipsch speakers, which are very efficient. Don't forget, speaker efficiency is a huge part of the equation when it comes to how loud a stereo can get, and how much work the amp has to do before it starts to sound strained.
Finally, the volume control. I apologize for the following Tom, but I always laugh when people try to impress me with how good or loud their stereo is, by saying, "I turn the knob up to 3, and it blasts the windows out of the walls! I've never had it above 4, it's so loud".
That's the way budget stereo makers make the volume controls. They are unusable beyond 1/4 of their rotation to impress the owners with the amp's "power". Of course, were they a completely useful knob, it would actually be useful throughout most of the rotational range. Again, on my Creek, there's a button for high range and low range volume control. On low range, I usually have it at about 270 degrees of rotation for normal use. This allows for more precise attenuation of volume. High range, I would suppose, would be for use with very inefficient speakers, or very large rooms. I've never used it, except to for fun, and it's about as useful as your volume control, Tom. At about 45 degrees rotation, the walls are shaking.
Am I in a contrary mood today, or what? What's that all about? <vbg>
cheers, frank
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
From: graywolf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Pentax Discussion Malling List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: OT: Sweet revenge Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 17:42:50 -0500
Well, the college kid in the next apartment just got to listen to 72 minutes of Franz Schubert. Played at a level where I could just clearly hear the low passages. Those who like Schubert know what that means. He did like the big horns.
Seems my little 45w stereo trumps his 200 watt home entertainment center. Of course mine dates from the 70's when they rated them a bit differently. Real listening watts as opposed to advertising watts. Sounded quite nice, frist time I have cranked it up (to somewhere around 2 on the volumn control) since I got the Technics receiver from eBay for Christmas. The Panasonic Speakers handled that level nicely.
Sweet, dead, silence from over there now.
-- graywolf http://graywolfphoto.com
"You might as well accept people as they are, you are not going to be able to change them anyway."
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