On Sun, 04 Jan 2004 08:27:50 GMT, "Form@C" wrote:

On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 22:11:11 +0000, Roy wrote:

"Form@C" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 15:47:40 +0000, Fish wrote:

I'm moving to a smaller house soon and alas my present audio stuff
will need changing for a smaller, more neighbour-friendly set-up.

At present I have a Bryston pre/power combo (250-watter) and a pair of
large Dynaudio floorstanders. Nothing-special CD-player as imho cd-players
are nothing special.

Why the hell do you want to change anything? Just crank the volume
down a notch or two!

Sheesh - 250W is enough to cook on.... :-)

No, barely adequate.

Depends on the system, but often true.

Have a look at any mid-price, fairly sensitive, half-decent speakers &
couple them with a little pure class A amp. Valves are nice...

No, they aren't - if you want *accurate* reproduction.

(you
could even build your own! I've just built a MOSFET headphone amp that
would scale up quite easily.

And what have MOSFETs to do with valves?

I bet it only cost me £30 or so if you
include the bits from the "scrap box".) You may be surprised at how
little power you really need; most people can get away with about 3W to
5W per channel under real-life surroundings.

During the "average" situation maybe. Lets say a symphony orchestra
burbling away steadily. Then comes the climax. One or two huge peak
demands. Maybe several hundred watts. It is the 5W valve amp's inability
to cope with peak requirements without distortion which is it's weakness.

But in this case the OP wants a more neighbour-friendly system... :-) We
arn't allowed to aim at full concert-hall volume here! In any case, how
close would you be sitting to the orchestra to reach the dB level for
"several hundred watts" *at your seat*?

That's typically 100-105dB, so it depends on your room and your
speakers.

Remember to take the sqrt of the
power each time you double the distance back. You tend to sit far closer
to speakers than you do to the orchestra in a concert hall.

And the square law no longer applies once you are half way down the
room..................

Try it. Use a
*good* low power amp and sensitive speakers. It's no use turning down a
100-200W monster amp because you arn't running them at their best. They
will be set up, probably anyway, to sound best at about 25-50% of full
output.

Absolute garbage!

Remember that to double the volume you have
to square the power,

No, you need ten times the power.

so 250W is about twice the volume of a 25W amp,
which in turn is about twice the volume of a 5W amp! The more sensitive
your speakers are, the better.

Yes, but you still need good amplifier power to ensure adequate
headroom for peaks.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering