tube watts vs transistor watts?

I was over to my tech friends house this morning, he has over 30 years experience and has had published articles in DIY mags on the design of TUBE equipment. I told him about your statement that a 200 watt amp would give 10% distortion at 210 watts. After a loud burst of laughter he said "he sounds like a real expert". I can't add anything to that.

Rrog

That is the first time in 7 years that anyone on Audiogon has agreed with me. Having said that I would like to die knowing that on just one occasion Tvad agreed with me. That would make me happy. My casket will be open for viewing.

Jim

Tvad, I'm sure you know everything I posted here (ever). You *probably* meant "maximum" instead of "minimum", but that wasn't what I was getting at. It's not just that we humans like one kind of distortion better than another. Whereas for tube amps, the line into "too much distortion" is somewhat arbitrary (1% THD? Why not 5%? 0.1%?), for SS amps, it's much more straightforward: they are either pretty linear, or catastrophic.

When I listen to Mahler's 3rd with the tube amp, I occasionally sigh or smile when the little guy runs out of gas, since it's not so bad and what are you going to do. When I turn on the 275 watt SS beast, I get the symphony in its proper loudness... with a finger right on the remote ready to stop the thing. Living dangerously.

Re-reading the OP again, maybe he was just asking if his speakers would blow up? Man, don't worry, if you can afford a 200 watt tube amp, you can afford new speakers. :)

Stanwal, aside from snide disrespectful remarks, did you bother to look at the graph at the Stereophile site that I told you about?
I'm sorry that you have to take that tone, it suggests you have other problems.
Now do go to that graph, then come back and tell us what precisely you see in that graph that motivates you to show so much contempt.

With tubes we tend to be satisfied with fewer watts instead of continuously increasing the volume to bring out something in the music we feel we are missing. Sure, you can get this in solid state electronics, but the price is much higher.
Rrog (Answers | This Thread)

I agree with this for the most part.

My experience with Pass Labs and First Watt amps is that if you have speakers easily driven by low power tubes, then the XA-30.5 and J2 amps provide a good amount of the excellent qualities of tube amplification at a price/performance ratio that's pretty reasonable, IMO.

That said, I compared the First Watt M2 and J2 to my Audio Note tubes amps, and I returned the First Watt amps.

So, in the end, the fact that I kept the tube amps suggests that I agree with Sounds_real_audio.

;)