RevM wrote:
What on earth can I drive with 1.3wpc? Or am I missing something? I'd have thought I would need a minimum of about 10 wpc to be of any real use?
I'm not quite sure how to say this, but you are yet another victim of the "More Power" Audio Cult.
This particular group first showed up in the late 1960s and early 1970s. During this period, and with the rise of the solid state amps and their very low damping factors, speaker design took a major turn for the worst. Efficiency tanked and speaker cones became bulky and sloppy. Energy robbing three way, and even some 4 way, crossover networks became the norm. It has even been argued that the rise of Disco music, with it's thumping bass lines, was a outgrowth of the solid state amps and big sloppy speakers. Low damping factors were great for bass but because the speakers were so inefficient, the amps soon grew in power. And the marketing departments kicked into high gear. The amps went to bigger and bigger power stages, and soon the power output of your amp became a measure of manliness. Ten watts per channel meant "little", 50 watts per channel, meant "big", and 100w per channel meant "hung like a bull"! And the major retailers sold big, powerful, gaudy, crappy sounding amps by the millions.
Now, 40 years later, we have learned better, but the cult is still out there and active. The fact of the matter is that most audio amps spend there entire existences putting out less than one watt per channel. And it really is the quality of this
first watt that matters most of all. For a much more detailed explanation of why this is so, read this blog entry here (
http://www.cascadetubes.com/2014/04/14/how-amp-technology-affects-volume-and-power/) and see if it answers your question.
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