High Wattage: Is It Necessary for Quality Reproduction?

So many people today are trying to help the planet by trying to be green. energy saving is usually a good thing, as it means less heat is being produced, and less carbon is being emitted as carbon dioxide during the production of that energy. Usually I am all for this, except when it comes to amplification.

Carver amplifiers continued in the tradition of Phase Linear, as high power quality amplifiers

Quality sound needs big robust amps, not for average volume levels, but for realistic reproduction of peaks. Back in the days when Carver was a big name in audio equipment, there was a story put into one of the company’s brochures. The story, to put it simply, was a propaganda item for buying the Carver amplifiers, as they had lots of power, and basically explained how Mr. Carver was trying to reproduce the sound of a scissors cutting a piece of paper. The upshot is that it took an amplifier of a thousand watts to properly reproduce the initial sound of the paper as it was cut in two pieces.

  a great album, and a sonic spectacular as well!

Many moons ago, I used to sell fine audio equipment. One of the best records (yes, records – that piece of black vinyl used to store music before compact discs) to demonstrate why lots of power was needed was a tune from the Carlos Santana album “The Swing of Delight” called ‘Song for My Brother’. Anyone who knows this song knows it is a typical Santana guitar piece with an almost lilting melody, until it gets to the refrain, and a wicked couple of thwacks of the kick drum cause your pulse to race, and your (if you have one) poorly designed and underpowered amplifier to clip like crazy. Clipping is when an amplifier tries to reproduce higher volumes than it is able to, and runs out of power. Some do it gracefully, most do not.

Infinity Reference Standard IIa – a great speaker, but an amplifier shredder!

I was fond of demonstrating this song using a Soundcraftsmen MA-5002 amplifier and Infinity Reference Standard II speakers. Anyone who ever heard these speakers knows how great they sounded, and for a price of $1250 for the pair (1983 dollars) they were amazing in both the quality of their sound, and their ability to shut off or destroy badly designed amplifiers. When the kick drum would hit, the LED display of the 5002 would go from an average of around 3 watts, which was moderately loud, to peaking at +6db, which was approximately 1000W. The LED display was only pegged for a fraction of a second, but the point was simple – if you didn’t have an amplifier capable of high power for those short periods, you didn’t get quality sound. If I had someone that I thought might need further evidence of why power was needed, I would hook the same turntable and speakers to the best receiver we sold at the time, which was rated 120W per channel, and had about 2db of headroom. This meant it was capable of almost 200 watts for short bursts. When I would play the average levels at 3 watts, verified by another meter, and then allow the song to continue through the peaks, the receiver would shut down. No sound other than the clicking off of the amplifier protection circuitry was heard. Then after about two seconds of silence, the music would continue. Two seconds of nothing is pretty irritating, but better than gross distortion, as some amplifiers produce. Worse yet, some of these same amplifiers will continue clipping until the output transistors fry, and – when the smoke comes out of an amplifier, there is just no way to put it back in.

What does this show? First, most speakers that are of any quality are not efficient. That is to say, in 97% of the cases where someone might make a point of how efficient their speakers are, you can also bet they have poor sound quality. Second, music is dynamic, it doesn’t take the explosions of a recording of the 1812 Overture to tax an amplifier. Third, many people were not able to identify the clipping of the amplifier as such, but almost all were able to say how the amplifier that did not clip significantly was much better sounding. This had nothing to do with the shutting off of an amplifier, as we could use a different amplifier of less power, but of enough quality to not shut down, to show how much better the higher powered amplifier made the music sound.

These are not esoteric differences. These are things that anyone can hear – whether the difference is enough to persuade them to buy quality is another story, but 99 people out of 100 will hear the difference.

-