Riddle me this...

Ron from McIntosh brings up a very valid point and one that i have "preached" on more than a few occasions. That is, dynamic headroom is king when it comes to clean reproduction. Most people do not realize how much their system is compromised when running low to medium powered amps with low to medium efficiency speakers. That is, until they try an amp with a much greater level of power and power reserve. This is not to say that all "big" amps sound good or are created equal, but that more power is not necessarily a "bad" thing if done right.

While i agree with Trelja that listening nearfield can be very rewarding, requires lower power and provides you with a completely different listening experience, it simply does not work well with a LOT of different types of music and / or speakers. Then again, i would hope that the buyer would have taken their listening environment into consideration when purchasing the components ( especially speakers ) for their system.

Unless you strictly listen to chamber music or use your system for background music, i would recommend begging or borrowing a good sized power amp with fast responding wattmeters on it to try in your system. Taking into account the impedance variables that come into play, i think that most of you would be amazed at how much power is required to reproduce momentary peaks when listening. I am talking about "good" listening levels, not even the levels that one thinks about when "cranking".

Personally, i found this out when i brought home a Yamaha M-80 power amp that i purchased for a friend at the same time that i had a Bryston 4B here. As a point of reference, both amps are rated at 250 wpc @ 8 ohms. While i would not call the Yamaha "reference quality", that specific model is about as good as "mass-fi" gets in my opinion. It is a dual mono design with individual iron core transformers for each channel. It is also capable of well over 1000 wpc on momentary peaks at low impedances, so it is not a "push over" when it comes to tough loads or "more reputable" hi-fi brands.

The point that i'm getting at is that the Bryston had clipping indicators on it. During normal listening sessions, the LED's were coming on VERY frequently. I substituted the Yamaha into the system, which has a very large LED based power meter on the faceplate. Rather than just seeing one led flickering per channel on a regular basis, i was able to track the power demands as a whole. What i found is that i was seeing very regular peaks of appr 900 watts appearing on the wattmeters. I then began scratching my head and thinking that the meters just HAD to be wrong. It simply was not that loud, at least not to me. Then again, the Bryston was going into clipping at the drop of a hat, so that made me think twice.

Substituting over a half dozen amps into that same system, i was able to see that some amps could drive the system with far greater ease and musicality than others of similar power ratings. The one thing that really shocked me was that i was able to drive the system to similar peak levels with some amps that were WAY less powerful. At least on paper and on the bench the amps were less powerful. The only consistent difference that i could find was that amps that remained in Class A bias for a longer period of time always sounded cleaner, clearer and "more powerful" than if i had an amp that was of lower bias and rated for more power. This taught me that it is "okay" to sacrifice power so long as the power that you have is of the utmost quality. You can still run into problems with lack of control, clipping, compression, etc.. with a low powered Class A amp, but the sound that you have the other 90% of the time is FAR superior to what you get out of a high powered low bias AB amp.

Obviously, these are just my thoughts and experiences on the subject. You can take them for what they are worth. Personally, i learned a lot with that group of experiments. I tend to think that others running relatively low powered Class A or very high bias Class AB amps have similar thoughts on the subject. Even though i may have GOBS of high biased AB power in most of my systems, i still love and respect smaller Class A amps to a great extent. Sean
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AH-HA! It's not just me. My bottom line suspicion has always been that it's 100% about money. The production cost differentiation between making an equally nice 60wpc amp and a 200wpc amp (parts being the only difference, as labor, overhead and everything else are more or less static) must be negligible. However, you can sell the 200wpc amp (same brand, same build quality) for many times more money. Simple: costs stay near the same, margins increase by 2-300%, and all folks need to invest in is the marketing to convince consumers it's a good idea. Actually, it's so simple as to be rather obvious. That said, as convincingly noted, it's obviously more complicated than that on a couple of levels -- most of which, again, have very little to do with sound quality and more to do with the rather perverse tastes of the consuming public. Eh, maybe we are suckers (and by "we" I don't mean "us," but, rather the insidious "them." And please excuse the gratuitous use of quotation marks).

All else being equal, and assuming a fantasy world where price equates roughly to quality, I'd certainly prefer my, say, $3k dedicated to 60 super-watts than squandered across 200 commensurately inferior watts -- especially since I can get - no, have to get - the 60 watt amp for 1/3 the price as it was made 10 years ago.... (Yea, Lugnut, I've not been writing this for a couple of months for precisely that reason. What can I say, I just can't shut up). Cheers.

Mezmo: The power dissipated in a "good" 50 wpc Class A amp is appr equivalent to what a "typical" 200 - 250 wpc Class AB amp has to dissipate. As such, the costs are about the same to produce. The low powered Class A amp may actually be more costly to produce as the chassis and components have to be able to dissipate more heat on a consistent basis than the more powerful yet lower biased / more thermally efficient AB amp.

Most "good quality" AB amps strive to deliver a good amount of Class A power ( 8 - 15 wpc ) and then switch over to Class B above those levels for increased dynamic headroom / circuit efficiency. Most "mass-fi" amps and quite a few "respected brands" run Class A for less than 2 watts or so.

An easy way to tell if your amp is highly biased is to feel the heatsinks of the amp at idle after being on for a while. If they are not physically warm to the touch, you have a low bias amp. Even if you have a huge amount of heatsinking available, Class A amps dissipate a ton of heat as their efficiency is quite low. Most of the "lost power" is converted into heat i.e. "thermal losses".

A simple trick that some "tweakers" / "modifiers" will do is to raise the bias level on an AB amp and make it richer. This means that the amp stays in Class A for a longer period of time before switching over into Class B for higher power demands. Thermal losses and heat are increased, but so is the linearity of the amp under "most" operating conditions. Sean
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My feeling for this kind of a trend is related to a few things. One, I think the trend now for a lot of companies is to multi channel gear, which even by the THX standard thing is promoting 100 watts/ch or more. And having been working around high end audio for years myself, I can see that multi channel, even high end multi-ch, outsells 2 channel by leaps and bounds! People getting into high end, are geared towards doing it with 5 channels and above it seems. And everyone promotes and recommends higher wattage for Surround sound for certain(unless using high sensitivity horns, which do better with tubes anyway) So all that I suspect leads towards an easy obselescence for tiny watt SS offerings...which is already dominated by "niche" tube amp makers for the "tweek" audiophile.(a small market proportionately).
Of what I speak, I speak largely for what's happening in the US market! I'm sure it might be different elsewhere.
If you are really interested in an answer to this question however, may I suggest calling Pass, Krell, and others personally, and talk to them?! That way you can get the inside shimmy as to what's the real reason!!
REally, I've worked in 4 high end audio stores, and 1 chain store over the years, and the Pass lower wattage amps were almost NEVER bought, and outweighed in sales vastely by larger X series amps, and multi channel amps as a whole! We had piles of 35w/ch class A opperation 2 channel SS amps in one store I worked in, and they sat there unmoved for years! I can honestly say i don't recall selling any lower wattage SS amps more than a few occasions, and mostly for high end sound in MULTIZONE/ROOM SYSTEMS, as secondary sound! Of all the lower wattage amps I sold, the tube amps far outweighed sales of SS similar wattage designs. Hummmmm....

Two, lower powered tube amps

Ron, I appreciate you getting involved in the discourse. You and Sean certainly make cogent points.

However, allow me to comment on your assertions as that of an outsider. One who values the McIntosh name, but does not see anything in the current lineup which would make me buy. What I have heard of the newer products does not interest me. Yes, they are high powered and can definitely put a lot of volume out. But, the sound does not appeal to me. I want a tube amp to be a tube amp. I want a tube amp to have delicacy, warmth, romance, musicality. I don't want to buy into the assertion that the sound of tubes and solid state is converging. I find that to be baloney. The best tube amps are not moving toward solid state sound. Tube amps which are moving toward that sound are companies like Audio Research(they may be abandoning this) and McIntosh. Tube amplifiers which many people buy because they sound like a Krell or Mark Levinson, but offer some sort of pride of ownership because the amp actually has tubes in it.

The classic, and most highly prized McIntosh products are those from the 1960's. Lower power, using less output tubes. There is always a buyer for these products either here on Audiogon or ebay.

These products, along with some other notable manufacturers, are what defined classic tube sound. I am of the opinion, and the comments of you and other McIntosh people sort of support this, that McIntosh considers these products to be a definite step down from their higher power stablemates.

The thing I would say to McIntosh is, look at the products that made the name of the company what it is. There are many out here that treasure the sonics of the older, lower power amplifiers. This is not an opinion, this is fact, borne out by the fact that when McIntosh reentered the tube amplifier market, it did so not with one of the newer, larger products, but a reissue of the MC275. Sales certainly reinforced the point that this type of product is viable in this day and age.

I have a dear friend who has some of the finest audio equipment that I have ever encountered. If it isn't pristine, both sonically and physically, he doesn't own it. In the first system one encounters in his home, a McIntosh 40 tube amplifier drives the mids/tweeters of a great sounding system. Countless people visit him, and are awed by the components he owns, yet the McIntosh amplifier NEVER fails to draw some of the most fervent attention.

I do not mean to refute your assertions. What you say is definitely valid. I put forth that there are those who go along with it, and those that don't. Otherwise, there would not be as many viable SET companies in the world as there are. Please allow the consumer the option of determining what is right and what is not right. There are people out here, who held fast in their tube amplifier(especially low power) love. They have driven speaker companies to address our need, those that cater to this market earn the sale, other speakers are overlooked. They are capable of taking a low powered amplifier and making magic with it. McIntosh need not lose sleep over the fact that they did not provide the buyer with 100, 200, or more watts. Believe me, these audiophiles will land on their feet.

What I am asking for is for McIntosh to recognize that some people wish to move to lower power, treasure the McIntosh brand, and would be delighted to be able to marry those two feelings. It would be a win - win situation; an amp for the buyer, sales for McIntosh. Personally, I will own a McIntosh amplifier at some point(my father claims we own one now, he says he has an old 40 laying around - but he's been saying this for about 5 years now...). Whether I buy new or used will solely be answered by McIntosh itself.