Any truth to speakers being better with a more powerful amp?

[Mattknz]

"What you really need is a power amp. That Denon has soft power. If you pump 200 watts into those things they'll really come alive" is what my local dealer told me today.
The speakers are Monitor Audio Silver 500 driven by a Denon Avr rated at 105 watts.
Considering I only need about 25 watts to listen at around 95db how can having an extra 100 watts over what I already have make any difference?

 

[sweetchaos]

The difference in decibels (dB) between an amplifier with 100 watts per channel and one with 200 watts per channel is about 3 dB.

That’s the difference that would be if you were to upgrade.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Probably not. Ask the dealer to define soft watts and how watt hardness is rated.

105 watts to 200 watts is only 3 db more loudness. Your speakers are more sensitive than most at 90.5 db for 2.83 volts at 1 meter. Rated impedance says minimum of 4 ohms. Not a particularly hard to drive speaker.

Don't know which Denon AVR you have, if it works with 4 ohm loads likely fine. If he is so sure, let him loan you an amp with no obligation to purchase. Even then you'll be biased to hear what he describes.

 

[Sokel]

The downside can be if RC,EQ,etc is used,that can eat lots of power.
Combine that with a larger room and high dynamic content and maybe the 100 watt is not enough for peaks.

 

[Roland]

Ironically there is a tendency, even on ASR, to accept a self-evident audiophile truth that more power is better and sounds better, without any empirical evidence. Hence the obsession with AVR preamp output and power amp advice.

 

[Mattknz]

The downside can be if RC,EQ,etc is used,that can eat lots of power.
Combine that with a larger room and high dynamic content and maybe the 100 watt is not enough for peaks.

Yeah, I can see that being the case, not sure if that's the same as he was implying though.

 

[Sokel]

Yeah, I can see that being the case, not sure if that's the same as he was implying though.

Probably isn't.
All one needs is a SPL calc,a target (not for average or max,but for peaks) and a pencil and paper.
You add all positives,subtract the negatives,allow some headroom if you like and you're done.

I think that a great tell about power is what good active speakers use.

 

[Ze Frog]

To a point yes, i.e having an amplifier with with enough grunt to reach dynamic swings effectively. So say you listen at 80dB you probably want at least 20dBof extra range just for short term swings. Some classical and really well recorded stuff can have up to 40dB in dynamic swing apparently, but that's going to be pretty rare and these are only very momentary peaks.

It's one of the reasons high sensitivity speakers are still relevant in this day and age of cheap power. More important though is making sure your amplifier can run at your speakers minimum impedance. Speakers rated say at 8 ohms can dip down to maybe 3 or even 2 at certain frequencies which ideally you want an amplifier that can handle that. The whole ohm rating needs to be more honest with a lot of stuff, as does sensitivity, cough cough Klipsch. Also impedance phase is another factor often overlooked, but that's something most people don't delve into as the information isn't always presented by the manafacturer and is even overlooked largely by reviewer's as well. It's rarely a problem, more with tubes but anything staying more than 60 degrees out of impedance phase can make a speaker more difficult for an amplifier to drive cleanly.

 

[SSS]

"What you really need is a power amp. That Denon has soft power. If you pump 200 watts into those things they'll really come alive" is what my local dealer told me today.
The speakers are Monitor Audio Silver 500 driven by a Denon Avr rated at 105 watts.
Considering I only need about 25 watts to listen at around 95db how can having an extra 100 watts over what I already have make any difference?

Don't know whether a speaker will sound better with a stronger power amp. Mandatory is to make sure that according to the type of music or other sound the safety margins of the power amp are left for peaks. Most power is needed for the bass content. So if it is heavy rock bass and drums so peaks can be heavy. If it is just music in the audio mid range like guitar and voice then needed power is low. Therefore decide according to your listening habits. One point left, stronger power amps in general can cope better with the back EMF of the speakers and damp the cone movement better. But this depends on the circuit design, so may be not always the case.

 

[Ze Frog]

"What you really need is a power amp. That Denon has soft power. If you pump 200 watts into those things they'll really come alive" is what my local dealer told me today.
The speakers are Monitor Audio Silver 500 driven by a Denon Avr rated at 105 watts.
Considering I only need about 25 watts to listen at around 95db how can having an extra 100 watts over what I already have make any difference?

If you only need 25 Watt's for 95 dB, then 105W is absolutely fine, the dynamic swings that is the benefit from more power can be reached without theoretical extra power needed by calculating the extra dB amount in dynamic swing to a certain degree because dynamics aren't a rock solid power delivery, we are talking milliseconds and seconds at which most decent amps can actually provide the required burst of power momentarily. It's always good to have headroom, if you had 50W per channel then an upgrade would help. Easiest rule of thumb I always use is double the power needed at my maximum desired output, then you have all you need for dynamics really.

The salesman is obviously going to say you require more to sell you something, if 25 Watt's has 95dB, which is pretty dang loud, the extra 80W should be more than enough reserve. Remember, dynamics are very short and despite an amps rating it can briefly output a burst beyond its rating. Obviously if you have an amp at the ragged edge though with no power, you don't have the spare power before hitting the burst power which are a certain point will rapidly degrade in output quality once it hits a certain level as the power reserve gets stretched.

 

[DanielT]

Is it the Monitor Audio Silver 500 7G you have? Those speakers don't need a lot of power because:

"The Silver 500 7G's sensitivity is specified as a high 90.5dB/2.83V/m, which was confirmed by my estimate. Monitor Audio specifies the Silver 500 7G's impedance as 8 ohms, with a minimum magnitude of 4.1 ohms at 150Hz. Measured with Dayton Audio's DATS V2 system, the impedance magnitude (fig.1, solid trace) remained above 4 ohms for the entire audioband, with a minimum value of 4.23 ohms at 153Hz. The EPDR (footnote 1) drops below 3 ohms between 81Hz and 135Hz, a region where music can have high levels of energy, with a minimum value of 2.12 ohms at 102Hz. The Silver 500 7G should be used with amplifiers that are comfortable with 4 ohm loads, but any drive difficulty will be ameliorated by the speaker's high sensitivity."

Monitor Audio Silver 500 7G loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements I measured the Monitor Audio Silver 500 7G's farfield behavior with DRA Labs' MLSSA system, an Earthworks microphone preamplifier, and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike, with its small ¼"-diameter capsule, to measure the nearfield...

www.stereophile.com

 

[VintageFlanker]

Considering I only need about 25 watts to listen at around 95db

How do you know this ?

"The Silver 500 7G's sensitivity is specified as a high 90.5dB/2.83V/m, which was confirmed by my estimate. Monitor Audio specifies the Silver 500 7G's impedance as 8 ohms, with a minimum magnitude of 4.1 ohms at 150Hz. Measured with Dayton Audio's DATS V2 system, the impedance magnitude (fig.1, solid trace) remained above 4 ohms for the entire audioband, with a minimum value of 4.23 ohms at 153Hz. The EPDR (footnote 1) drops below 3 ohms between 81Hz and 135Hz, a region where music can have high levels of energy, with a minimum value of 2.12 ohms at 102Hz. The Silver 500 7G should be used with amplifiers that are comfortable with 4 ohm loads, but any drive difficulty will be ameliorated by the speaker's high sensitivity."

SoundStage measures 89.6dB IEC.

SoundStageNetwork.com | SoundStage.com - NRC Measurements: Monitor Audio Silver 500 7G Loudspeakers

www.soundstagenetwork.com

 

[voodooless]

Well, simplistically, if we assume louder is better, the statement "more power sounds better" must be true

... the only caveat is that you'll also need to turn your volume control up

 

[TonyJZX]

the opposite may be true too

if i have a decent set of speakers with good sensitivity you could go from a Crown or Behringer type $199 special with well over 100w and i might go to a Rotel Tribute or something like a slim 50w integrated and you should have an increase in SQ.

A dbx though? maybe not.

 

[fpitas]

"What you really need is a power amp. That Denon has soft power. If you pump 200 watts into those things they'll really come alive" is what my local dealer told me today.

His life will be better if you give him money.

 

[Nicolas_]

I was told once that to drive my speaker I needed an amp "capable of delivering more current/juice" (in French the word was "courant", which to me sounds like it means more quantity of electricity - as in amps/A??), even though the rated power of the amp seemed perfectly OK with my speakers specs. I think it was when I had an SMSL AD18 and the Q Acoustics Concept 40.
So I went and bought a Nuprime IDA-8.

Did this talk of "current" mean any thing? did it have to do with power supply (and could have been fixed by buying a bigger PSU for the AD18), or is it a different issue altogether?
Recently I read about how the dynamic peak power demands are delivered by stored energy in the amp (can't remember the name of the component - capacitator maybe?), is this related?

 

[fpitas]

Did this talk of "current" mean any thing?

Not really. Some odd speakers have dips to very low impedance, so need tremendous current drive from the amp. That's very rare these days, but the myth has propagated that huge current drive is a magic bullet.

 

[Nicolas_]

Not really. Some odd speakers have dips to very low impedance, so need tremendous current drive from the amp. That's very rare these days, but the myth has propagated that huge current drive is a magic bullet.

So power is the only relevant metric to take into consideration to match amp to speakers, at least "quantitatively"?

 

[fpitas]

So power is the only relevant metric to take into consideration to match amp to speakers, at least "quantitatively"?

It depends on your speaker of course; but usually, yes.

 

[Nicolas_]

Thanks