Quote from Steve's paper:  https://www.decware.com/paper43.htm

"Aside from the amplifier’s superiority by simplicity, there is a more profound reason for using SET amplifiers.  The magic predominately lies in the first watt.  By magic I mean inner detail and most of the dynamics. For example, a pair of 96dB speakers playing with one watt of power against the average noise floor in your listening room (55dB) is 40 dB of dynamic range.  (96 – 55 = 41 dB) Adding a second watt increases the dynamic range by only 3 dB. For every additional 3 dB you need to double your power. This should clearly illustrate that there is over 10 times the dynamic range in the first watt as there is in the second.

This brings us directly to loudspeakers.  A typical loudspeaker today is 86 dB efficient with 1 watt.  It also usually has a complex crossover that attempts to keep the frequency response and impedance flat.  The crossover alone will usually dissipate a significant portion of the first watt as heat before it even reaches the drivers.  To reach the same loudness level as the 96 dB speaker will with 1 watt requires over 8 watts on the 86dB speaker.  If we used 2 watts on the 96 dB speaker the other would require 16 watts to keep up.  If we used 4 watts on the 96 dB speaker the other would require 32 watts to keep up."

@DBC, yep, I know that paper well. That is one reason I am looking forward to Paul's discussion of SET amps. Though in accuracy, the segment you quoted is much more about the qualities of the speaker and crossover excellence, or lack thereof, than it is about any SET magic.

I like this discussion, and appreciate the time DBC and ski bum put into responding. And as I said, I am looking forward to Paul's posts on this topic. A couple of things caught my eye, this in particular:

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I have not had that experience. To me, volume matching is pretty much just that. However, at the same volume, especially a slightly lower one, I find our low-wattage amps much more engaging.

Pale Rider,

Thanks for turning me on to Paul McGowan's daily missives. Interesting reading.

Let's not miss the main point, though. There's a dichotomy and we have chosen the low-level rich detail and lush midrange with fine highs full of sparkle, and this is great sound. But, the tradeoff is still there regarding limited dynamic boost and 'oomph' typical of higher powered amps.

Regardless of how sensitive the speakers are, I'm not talking about loudness levels or volume, but a trait which will never be possible in low power tube amp designs. Yet, who cares so long as we get that indescribable sound richness. Its a tradeoff choice and I know we are on the better side of the divide.

There's no substitute for a lot of power in reserve.  It just achieves different objectives. Speaker sensitivity will not replace that, and who cares.

Well, I don't really have enough experience and information to say that, and I guess I care. I'm not really sure that speaker sensitivity can't "substitute" for "power in reserve." There may be more than enough power so to speak.

Anyway, ski bum (kindof hate to address you that way!) is right. There are many approaches to the goal of exciting musical playback. I think many here will say if you have the right Decware amp with the right Decware speaker you feel you have power enough.

Interesting. I just relate to the time I had VTL monoblocks (225 Deluxe, back in the early 90's), a push-pull design with 225 Watts per channel RMS. I recall the level of detail and transparency almost as good as my Mini Torii, but with impressive dynamic capacity to go into peaks.

At the time, my speakers were floor-standing Clements, with a mix of electrostatic ribbons and more traditional drivers for the lower mid and bass frequencies (I don't recall the specs, sorry).

In any event, the music had a lot of presence and you could feel the power coming out of those speakers in typical highly dynamic passages, although that system never really handled the lower frequencies properly.

This is not too much power for SS standards, mind you, but a significant brute in PP tube amplification.

I prefer my Mini Torii in every aspect, except I do miss that reserve of dynamic capacity (oomph!), or power feeling, when some of my classical music passages could  take advantage of it.

I imagine the new Torii Monos bring along something of this trait to a new market niche in Decware, a cluster that tends to go away from near-field, headphone and small room close listening, and offers that same wonderful sound quality at a higher dynamic potential.

I don't think one can have a conversation about amplifier power without considering the full spectrum absorption in any given room... The more sound absorption, the more power is needed to reach a satisfying sound level in your room...

With all this talk about room treatments, a low power SET amp can be right at the margin as far as supplying a wanted volume level AND the substantial fidelity these amps are capable of...

I'm not a big fan of putting more sound absorption in any room... I usually go for less, and hope it sounds right in my room environment... Albeit, it does put more of a burden on you to place the speakers right...

This is not meant to sound contrary; I just don't quite see this as simply as you do, nor do I see a different point of view as so crassly commercial and without intellectual merit as to be written off as "chumming the waters." You're talking about a guy who has acknowledged contributions to high fidelity engineering, who has developed some of the top equipment of this and previous eras, who is on his company's forums day and night, and who responds to emails directly within hours. His equipment is used side-by-side with Decware users on this forum, and to rave reviews on both. He has earned better. Obviously, no one is required to respect anybody, but if you don't at least give the benefit of attentiveness to someone who might actually know what he is talking about, then you aren't going to learn as much about that topic.

ski bum wrote:
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Actually, I think you and McGowan are in perfect agreement on that. I think the difference between the two of you might be as conceptually simple as how one approaches measuring the starting point, because there is not a whole lot of denying the math, once you have the starting point.

While I agree that terms like crest factor can be just packaging of concepts that either are or aren't valid [though see the last comment on the post cited below; there is actual math there], I learned a long time ago that mere amp measurements as you describe don't actually tell you what it takes to reproduce the levels of live music, even if that live music is as subdued as a whispering female singer. As for chumming the water, I am just as much a cynic as the next guy, perhaps even more so, but this topic is about much more than just advancing a marketing ploy. PS Audio is hardly alone in this viewpoint that more watts might be needed than thought to reproduce certain dynamics in music. Measuring how loud your watts currently can make a speaker sound doesn't mean a whole lot to me. Would that it were as simple as you make it sound.

But measuring a high SPL does not mean you are measuring unclipped output with sufficient headroom to reproduce the next 3db. And that is what this is all about. Not just can you go loud, which BTW, my Toriis and ERRs do quite well, but can your amp and speakers handle the dynamic range once the floor of what you are listening to has been established.

All McGowan has said is this: if it takes a certain amount of power to achieve X db of sound level, then it takes Y more power to achieve the unclipped dynamic range necessary for the type of music one may be playing. That's really it. And if you go back and read Music Math with an open mind, including some of the back and forth comments below the post, you will see people engaged in asking very open and candid questions about high power versus headroom, other proponents of high power, proponents of low power, etc. Calling this chumming or flim-flammery is really unfair to the people engaged in the discussion. You may not agree with them, but that doesn't make them dishonest. [Cable and capacitor snake oil, anyone? I used to think so, until I learned to hear otherwise.]

Steve has been called a master marketer, even a huckster, in other forums, but we have reason not to accept that characterization. We took the time to learn otherwise. We might be willing to give the same thoughtfulness to other respected people, even if their perspective is very different. But if we cannot do that without name-calling, then I would submit this thread has probably run its course. Oh well, I thought the discussion was interesting; over there, it still is. I can enjoy it there, and still revel in my Toriis and ERRs.

Again, lets not loose perspectives here. The objective being proposed by McGowan is to (essentially) provide optimum headroom for all possible music passages requiring it.  But, he does not discusses (yet) the tradeoffs involved.

Plenty of headroom is just one aspect of sound quality. With the required higher power levels, usually there's the tradeoff of transparency. If we believe in the low power-high resolution/transparency approach, increasing power so much will definitely affect and reduce these traits.

I rather have a transparent, lush, beautiful sound at low power levels, than plenty of oomph! and not getting the same quality sound.

This is not new, as this dichotomy has been in this business forever, with SET followers and high-power enthusiasts.

The issue is, so far, nobody has been able to have their cake and eat it too. It's either of the two objectives, not both. BTW, an achievable compromise is a well designed tube Push Pull amp.

Some people in this forum prefer the Super Zen, others are happier with the Torii MKIII, and so are those owning in-between iterations. Oomph! (for lack of a better term), is great IF you already have (and get to keep) all the other (more important, to me at least) attributes.

I'm sure there are some ultra mega-bucks SS designs coming very close to this ideal, in systems with wonderful and complicated loudspeaker designs, but do they really sound as good as a well designed SET?

I tell you what. The most expensive PS A cords are half what ski bum indicates, and can be bought at half that again used, etc. I've tried them, and after trying them, I haven't liked any other power cords nearly as much to settle, so I've decked my system with them and have never been happier with my system sound. I've been poorer as a result, but that's a choice.  I think what these do to Decware components elevates the performance past the level that upgrading to more expensive components may take your system. Just a supposition on my point because I haven't bought the more expensive components, but I'm not going to, with these cords the Decware pieces just shine and delight.

It's not snake oil, in my opinion. Is it expensive stuff? Definitely. But they've transformed my components in very positive ways.

As for power levels, I say who cares what's ideal, what the limits of science applied here are, etc. If you follow the advice of the manufacturer regarding component compatibility you can find wonderful sound, loud enough indeed. Those final percentages of what is possible. . . those will always be on the cutting edge and require deep pockets to have excellent sound as well as all the other characteristics. Fly that high to the sun with caution.

You're right about the fake PS A cords, gotta be on the lookout for those.

I think that McGowan's current goal is to come up with amps that are tailor made for the Perfctwave and Nuwave DACs, and I bet that they'll be optimized to work wonderfully with those and will sound GREAT. But they won't be Decware amps. . . and they really won't even be competing for the same market share.

Wait, Pale Rider...the "girls music" you are referring to is the Linn Records album right?? I'm being a bit slow this Saturday evening, sorry!

I spent the past week trying to figure out an issue I was having with JRiver on my computer...and today (after some back an forth with some folks on the JRiver forums) I figured it out!

BTW I downloaded some sample Hi-Rez music from HD tracks and it sound pretty fantastic through my DAC...man! I was just listening to some Radio Head (from my own library) and I haven't had time to a/b it with the CD, but playing through my computer with JRiver and JPlay I don't think it's sounded better.....hmmm this computer audio realm is sounding very sweet so far....more to come

I disagree with the statement that SET is only suitable for Jazz and classical.

It took me lots of patience and tube-rolling to get my SE setup to work with all genres of music.
My tube rolling adventures came to an end when I finally rolled in the Brimar 5R4GY rectifier in my system.

Now I have the lush tube warmth required for jazz vocals.
Bass wise, I have a tight low end with vibrational impact sufficient to shake one's molars if I play Japanese Taiko drums music.
For the treble, cymbals have "zing", decay and acoustic guitars or harps can bring tears to the listener.
Classical music pieces are also clean and linear sounding.

IMHO, the ultimate test would be modern Pop music which places sonic requirements on the bottom end all the way to the top end.
Contemporary pop music by Madonna sounds great on my SE system.

He's still doing the cursory survey of a complex topic, and repeating some  gerealizations which may or may not be the case.  He's actually correct on the class A thing.  The voltage thing is a bit more complicated, and I'll be curious to see if he veers off into being nonlinear into real speakers, or talks about apparent increased dynamic power (which for SETs is more likely relating to their overdrive characteristics...which us SET users try to minimize by choosing appropriate speakers in the first place).    

http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/the-cool-sound-of-tubes...

A little light reading while you wait for tomorrow's installment of McGowan's hand waving red herring show.  Note the noise floor for triodes and trannys as compared to the transistors: -30db difference (realize that's orders of magnitude better performance.)

Today's post, High Voltage, starts to get interesting around tubed amlification advantages:
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So his big hyphex (or whatever) class D, with great specs, got subjectively bested by a ten year old pp tube amp.  It's kind of an apples to oranges comparison, and not too surprising.  Makes me think he's spinning his wheels and going nowhere.

Maybe he should call Bob Carver to help him alter the transfer function of his squeaky clean, high headroom amp to more closely mimic the tube amp, if that's really his goal.  (I thought he was more interested in building an amp capable of unclipped tambourine hits requiring thousands of watts to cleanly reproduce.  Maybe he should take some marketing classes from Bob, too.)