Post by Lonely Raven on 10/09/17 at 16:22:47
Agreed with above - you need to define your listening I think. I have a friend that can't use anything under 200 watts because his goal is to have RUSH sound like he's seeing them in concert. I can't stand it, but it's what he likes. I wouldn't even bother trying to talk him into a tube amp - he's dead set in his ways - even after listening to my all tube system he's just like "it sounds great, but I wanna rock!" (shrug).
Now the flipside of that is that I want to hear every detail, I want to get emotionally involved in the subtleties and feel what the artist was pouring into the music; not just the feeling of being there in concert. I can do beautiful, detailed, subtle, and get ear ringing volume in a small room with 2-3 watts, and light, fast, efficient speakers - or I can do that in a larger room with 20-30 watts and 91+db efficiency speakers. And these days, there are a lot of those to go around!
If you have a smart phone, you can easily measure you typical listening volume with an app - just search for DB Meter or Volume Meter and there are plenty of free ones. And here is this chart for some perspective.
Also, I wouldn't get hung up on this clipping thing. Yes, tubes clip more smoothly - but if you have the right speakers mated up with the right amp, clipping shouldn't even be part of the equation. Now, if you're pushing low efficiency speakers with only 3 watts - well, you've set yourself up to fail right from the start.
A couple personal thoughts - I happened into a pair of mint MG-IIa last year, I was able to drive them with my Decware ZMA (Zen Mystery Amp), but I couldn't get them to thump like I could with a vintage 200 watt transistor amp that actually sounded really good to me. However, even though I couldn't thump with the ZMA, it sounded sweeter and more enjoyable than the big transistor amp. And just for fun, I hooked up a bit 2000 watt A/B amp from Ashley that I happened to have around - and while it drove the panels just fine, it sounded very sterile. I wound up selling the panels just because as nice as they sounded, they weren't a good match for my best sounding amp. The panels also weren't earth shattering enough for me to explore an amp that has good synergy with it. I got far more enjoyment from my high efficiency speakers on my tube amps - though the panel did have a speed thing going on that I really enjoyed.
Lastly - there is a reason the best transistor amps are said to be "tube like". It's not just because they *might* clip more smoothly or whatever - it's because they aren't sterile. Those Pass amps mentioned above are a great example. They are Class A, very consistent, and do sound great...but most big power transistor amps (in my opinion) are built to be clean, sterile, and look good on paper and in a meter. But I don't listen to meters, I listen to music.
So there is a lot more than wattage and distortion ratings to what makes an amp sound good, and breath life into music. Don't get hung up on specs, give everything a listen and see what your gut says about what sounds good.