Ralph then Marc got me thinking about usable watts. We all see amps with watt ratings. But how many usable watts do you get before the amp starts to soft clip, compress,distort.
I have a 50 watt KT88 PP amp and it appears to play much louder before clipping than a 27 watt SET amp I also have. I was surprised how quick the SET seemed to loose its dynamics.
How manufacture dependent is this. How topology dependent. As in tube, SS, Digital
To make the question more complex, shall we also consider how hard one may need to drive an amp to get to its sweet spot. I believe I have heard certain SS amps have more noise when running under power. That they need a load to reach optimum low distortion levels.
I have a 50 watt KT88 PP amp and it appears to play much louder before clipping than a 27 watt SET amp I also have. I was surprised how quick the SET seemed to loose its dynamics.
How manufacture dependent is this. How topology dependent. As in tube, SS, Digital
To make the question more complex, shall we also consider how hard one may need to drive an amp to get to its sweet spot. I believe I have heard certain SS amps have more noise when running under power. That they need a load to reach optimum low distortion levels.