Can you have to much power

Mike_Schmidt

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Feb 24, 2008
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Never thought of this before I bought my Parasound JC2 Pre Amp and A21 Power Amp, but my room is small 12 x10.5 with 9' ceilings but I do open the french doors behind me. Can you have to much of a good thing
 

SHAXOS

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Feb 11, 2008
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I have a 550 watt per channel MF amp driving bookshelf speakers. I am also in a smallish room and love the sound so im gona say no you cant have too much (within reason!)
 

up the music

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I'm currently trying an MC Audio MC1250 power amp with 750wpc8ohms, 1250wpc4ohms and quite enjoying it. Too much volume is definitely achievable. There seems to be no problem with massive power on tap. It just won't get used, even on transients.

The only worry is if a fault state might fry the speakers before protection kicks in, but that would be the same for many amps.
 
A

Anonymous

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Within reason I think.

The trick I find is to have sufficient power to effortlessly drive the music at any volume you desire without the sound tightening up.

(most equipment gives a tightened up sound anyway so most will view this sound as normal HiFi)
 
A

Anonymous

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Real life has much more dynamic range than hi fi and requires about 1000 wpc and speakers of average sensitivity to achieve it. However most record producers are aware of the problem and apply compression to avoid clipping lower powered amplifiers. This happens most with modern commercial pop and least with high quality stuff of worth like Jazz, Classical and acoustic music. Therefore for the best possible sound quality you will always get better results with the biggest amplifiers. However more powerful amplifiers have more distortion, so you have to pick one big enough not to clip and small enough to still sound good for best results.

Ash
 

Tear Drop

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Ashley James:Real life has much more dynamic range than hi fi and requires about 1000 wpc

Nonsense!! I continue to read your forum posts here and elsewhere with much amusement Ashley.
 
A

Anonymous

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MORE POWER ARRR ARRRR ARRRRR!!!

toolman-288x300.jpg
 
A

Anonymous

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Wow - there's some powerful amps out there! If I compared my 70wpc Cyrus 8vs2 against some 500 wats per channel monster, what differences would I hear? Is a more powerful amp always better? I think I'm right in thinking that it's more about control than volume?
 
A

Anonymous

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I assume most of you chaps must live on a desert island. I'm afraid if I lived next door to you I would be right annoyed.

Yes I do live in a small semi !! I have to make do with 35wpc and keep that turned down most of the time.

Having said all that, yes, big is beautiful.
 

AEJim

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Nov 17, 2008
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Wrong end of the stick a touch there, I'll use the old car analogy (car analogies always seem to work with Hi-Fi for some reason ;)) -

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I presume your car (if you drive) will go faster than 70mph? But why? Anything more is illegal and worthless in this country. Well the simple fact is that if you spend much time at that 70mph limit in a car which has a 70mph top speed the chances are that you'd be at 6k+ revs, the engine would overheat and you'd have no power to overtake if the need arose, aside from which the strain and noise would make the trip very uncomfortable.

Now, do that same trip in a far more powerful car with 140mph top speed, you'll probably be sitting at around 2k revs at 70mph, relaxed and well within your limits, the car will be more reliable and controllable, if you have to overtake you will be able to do so with ease.

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Relate that exactly back to amplifier power and you will get the idea, it's not about volume. A powerful amp will have more control of your speakers, less distortion, more detail evident (especially in the bass where more power is required to control the larger driver) and headroom for peaks in music - even at your favoured modest listening levels.

That's the basic's really, generally more power = better amp, all things considered. A perfect amp would have no character of its own, this is where the grey areas arise as there is no "perfect" amp so character comes into it!

Even with character removed from the equation the bare figures don't tell the full story - power, be it horsepower or watts (RMS) relates to just one measurement - in the real world there are other factors, consider torque as an equivalent to current supply in an amp and this is in many cases just as, if not more important than the wattage figure. (Naim amps are a good example of low power but good current delivery equalling a good amp capable of driving fairly difficult loads).

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Just my two penneth worth! ;)ÿ

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