Bigman80
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The HiFi Bear/Audioaddicts/Bigbottle Owner
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Post by Bigman80 on Oct 23, 2019 19:16:20 GMT
What a fun topic  It was sparked by me thinking about why low powered expensive SS integrateds face a bit of a hard time getting credibility, yet low powered valve amps can command fortunes. I don’t personally believe valve watts are any bigger, better or badder than SS ones, yet there does seem to be a greater willingness to shell out fir valve integrateds than SS. I see it as an inconsistent perception based on some myths about valves. Don’t get me wrong, I like valve amps. I just think it shouldn’t matter whether it’s valve or SS when it comes to commanding a premium. I’m sure a few cable or fuse myths and inconsistencies will be worthy of discussion too. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2019 19:22:36 GMT
Ive always sed low power vintage amps sound better than bigger wans..
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2019 19:50:34 GMT
What a fun topic It was sparked by me thinking about why low powered expensive SS integrateds face a bit of a hard time getting credibility, yet low powered valve amps can command fortunes. I don’t personally believe valve watts are any bigger, better or badder than SS ones, yet there does seem to be a greater willingness to shell out fir valve integrateds than SS. I see it as an inconsistent perception based on some myths about valves. Don’t get me wrong, I like valve amps. I just think it shouldn’t matter whether it’s valve or SS when it comes to commanding a premium. I’m sure a few cable or fuse myths and inconsistencies will be worthy of discussion too. Some have reported good things about the modestly powered John Linsley Hood based amps from China. |
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Post by sq225917 on Oct 23, 2019 20:43:32 GMT
Cos most valve amps ate sold on brand and myth, not specs.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2019 9:43:43 GMT
Cause low powered valve amps sound shyte for the most part. Audiophiles love worshiping Sh#t like flea watt SET amps, and those crappy sounding, stupid full range single driver speakers. They pay silly money for the annoying things.
And OFC that deluded idea that vintage sounds better.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2019 11:31:29 GMT
Probably 'cos maybe 80% of everything believed by yer typical audiophile is complete bollox! I've said it before so will again that probably the people who know least about hi fi are audiophiles... on the basis that no knowledge is better than a head full of stuff that's mainly wrong...
On the OP, valve amps do cost considerably more to make, Watt for Watt, than solid state ones but I quite agree that low powered SS amps, especially class A ones (and lets face it if you are going the route of low powered but fairly expensive SS than why would you use anything but class A!??) have a hell of a lot to offer! In fact most of the ideas I've been playing with on power amp design for a while now have been SS class A amps of 10-20WPC.
It does seem to be the case that due to the usual BS marketing and ignorance of buyers that the lower the power of a valve amp and the more obsolete and crude the design then the more expensive it gets W for W.... make the amp much worse by using say interstage coupling transformers a la 1930's and the price goes up... make it worse still by using valves that were obsolete by 1935 and it goes up even more!
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Post by sq225917 on Oct 24, 2019 14:25:44 GMT
Exclusivity bruv
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2019 19:35:02 GMT
But if you strip away all the Hi-Fi BS your left with nothing  Lifes back to being simple.. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2019 13:31:05 GMT
Trust me Valve Watts are bigger than SS watts.
Get a 2 watt valve amp and a 2 watt SS amp
Or
Get a 200 watt SS amp and a 200 watt valve amp
You'll see......😂👍😂
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Post by sq225917 on Nov 21, 2019 15:52:28 GMT
Given that watts are Voltage x Current that's patently impossible.
That's most speakers in a domestic situation seldom require more than a handful of watts and that electrical power and audio power dont scale in a linear fashion probably leads one to conclude that valve watts are bigger.
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Post by macca on Nov 21, 2019 18:40:30 GMT
Probably said this before but the first bias lights on the Krell 50S come on when power drawn exceeds 750 milliwatts. In my normal use they very rarely light up, and even then only on crescendos and only for a couple of seconds. So most of the time it is producing less than 1 watt. Speakers are 90dB.
Yes - I was a surprised as anyone.
Anyway are power and watts not really the same thing? A Watt is unit of heat not power.
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Post by sq225917 on Nov 21, 2019 20:08:27 GMT
You're mistaken, the watt is the 'si' unit of power and equivalent to one joule per second.
Heat output of heaters is most usually given in watts, but you need to know the efficiency of the heater to make any real sense of it.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2019 20:17:56 GMT
Ohm's law V=IxR (providing the temp remains constant)
I = V over R
R = V over I
Approx 4.2 A per KW / 240V
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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2019 20:18:54 GMT
Still we have already established measurements = Jack Sh#t.
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Post by dsjr on Nov 21, 2019 20:28:34 GMT
Probably said this before but the first bias lights on the Krell 50S come on when power drawn exceeds 750 milliwatts. In my normal use they very rarely light up, and even then only on crescendos and only for a couple of seconds. So most of the time it is producing less than 1 watt. Speakers are 90dB. Yes - I was a surprised as anyone. Anyway are power and watts not really the same thing? A Watt is unit of heat not power. I reckon your speakers must have been several db more efficient as I had the mid level lights on continuously and occasionally on Ozric Tentacles or similar, the third set of full cooker-mode lamps would light and stay on - cough.....
'Valve' watts sound louder I reckon, due to compression. I first 'really' heard this when comparing an ARC Classic 60 to a very well warmed up Nakamichi PA5mk2 (150WPC I believe) at home into easy? ES14's! No idea how much distortion the ARC was adding, but the noises coming from the speakers were most enjoyable.
We apparently can take up to 10db of compression barely noticing it (there's a BBC paper about it), so assuming it's correct, using very crude and possibly incorrect working out, a 40W valve amp with several db of clipping headroom would give over 100 'solid state' Watts*, albeit with masses of distortion... probably completely wrong way of doing it.
* My understanding is that most solid state amps when finally pushed too hard, sound absolutely terrible, although the Nait mk1 just stopped getting louder and squashed everything together like a nice valve amp pushed too hard beyond it's miniscule power reserves. Rolling the bass off on the vinyl input as it did probably helped save some needless bass distortion from a vinyl source back then.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2019 20:31:51 GMT
Where's Jez....He would know for sure.
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Post by macca on Nov 21, 2019 21:15:22 GMT
The speakers are 90dB I think. But I also think you must crank it up a bit more than I do I think on the surface of it valve watts do go further. Maybe it is because they have output transformers so the levels at different frequencies will vary depending on the impedance? Louder bass will make the whole thing seem louder? Some valve amp do have bass that is a bit thick or even overblown. You don't tend to get that in solid state, even rubbish ones. Rubbish solid state usually has the opposite problem. |
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Lifes back to being simple.. 
