Coincidentally, this debate of how much power is enough came up on another thread for me.
The entire home may 1,700 sqft, but the home is not one open space though.
You have to consider the volume of the listening space and at what SPL do you listen to.
I have a 87.5dB anechoic sensitivity speaker, in a small living room that is open to the rest of the first floor. My Yamaha A-S2200 rated at 90w/ch into 8 ohms, at about 6/7ft away, is plenty for my needs, at about mid-70dB on average.
Is it foreseeable that 100w/ch isn't enough? Yes, but I personally don't see it often.
In 1973 is when I discovered that 100 watts a channel was not going to cover anything that I was going to do in audio and here is why:
The Dahlquist DQ10 was the first loudspeaker manufactured by the Dahlquist company, then based in Hauppauge New York. Among the company’s founders were some famous names in audio, such as Jon Dahlquist and
Saul Marantz, Irving M. Fried and Werner Eymann.
- Type: 5-way phased array, open baffle
- Frequency response: 35 Hz — 27,000 Hz
- Recommended amplification: 150 to 200 Watts
- Crossover frequencies: 400, 1000, 6000, 12000 Hz
- Nominal impedance: 8 Ohms
- Bass: 1 x 25,4cm (cone)
- Mid-bass: 1 x 12,7cm (cone)
- Midrange: 1 x 4,45cm (soft dome)
- Tweeter: 1 x 1,9cm dome
- Super Tweeter: 1 x piezoelectric
- Dimensions: (h) 99cm x (w) 77cm x (d) 33cm
- Weight: 22,7 kg
- Years: 1973-1988
The DQ10's design was first exhibited at a New York audio show in 1972.
In combination with the speaker stands, the DQ10 looked light and non-technical from the front and slim from the side. It arguably held greater resemblance to a radiator than a loudspeaker, an aspect that made it both stand out as a design element and an understatement in terms of technology. Strangely enough, its appearance fits into a modern household just as well as it did back in the seventies. It is not surprising, therefore, that close to 60,000 pairs of Dahlquist DG10s were sold between 1973 and the end of its production in 1988.
The Dahlquist was rated at 8 Ohms and appeared to be easy to drive, and yet, the phased array design required lots of clean power from the amplifier to sound at its best.
150-200 watts paired with high-current ability went down well with the DQ10. (and 100 watts or less just did not cut it)
Although the speaker was positioned relatively low for many seating arrangements, its height became less of an issue when sitting further away from the speakers.
Generous distance (please note: GENEROUS DISTANCE) from the speakers was essential to minimize phase differences resulting from the spacious array design.
Since then, I have always skewed to the high side with high current & higher watt amps.
My six mid-1980's NAD 2200's are nominally rated at 100 watts RMS.
Results here indicate otherwise:
It is power measurements where the magic of this amplifier comes to life so let's look at that with 4 ohm load first:
We can see a kink in distortion when we hit 200 watts as the unit sails past that to produce whopping 337 watts per channel, both driven! Per design characteristics, you can have much more during momentary peaks:
Wow, we have one kilowatt of power coming out of this amp in short duration!
Switching to 8 ohm we see similar results as 4 ohm:
Sweeping the power test at 4 ohm with different frequencies shows a well-behaved amplifier:
You do loose power in higher frequencies but that is fine since music spectrum has lower energy there anyway.
Due to the long duration of this test, the protection circuit likely backed off the high voltage rail, producing lower output levels.
(SINAD 95 [through the LAB inputs]).
