Realistic power requirements for the Confidence Series ....

[joeinid]

I am toying with getting at least the C1 Sigs or C2 Sigs and wonder how many tube watts would be necessary to wake them up and play well. Thoughts? I'm thinking Conrad Johnson tube watts .

[Puma Cat]

Well, I am running Contours very effectively with 70 Wpcs of C-J tube power. Mick Tillman, the Dyn NA rep was at one point running his personal C1s with a 40 WPc Octave Integrated, so that should give you an idea.

BTW, if you can arrange a demo, take the CA200 with you and use that! It will give you a reference with respect to something you are familiar with. Please be sure the speakers you are auditioning have at least 300 hours on them; this is key.

[joeinid]

Thanks Stephen,

I plan on hunting down a pair to listen to and see what I am in for sound-wise. This is getting fun.

[NeilNZ]

When I had the C4's I used lots of different amps, a Perreaux 350p, Pass XA30.5, ARC CA50, Musical Fidelity A1008, MF XP200s, MF A3.2, Sugden A21SE etc
All were really nice, but my favourite was the little Pass at 'only' 30watts (of course its really much more than that.
I think its true for older Dyns that they are power hungry, but not so much the newer designs...

[joeinid]

Thanks Neil,

Which Habeth speakers and Leben amp do you use now?

[VT Skier]

I think the C1s are a little less efficient (85 dB if I remember the Stereophile measurements correctly) than the larger speakers, so they may want a little more power to reach their potential, depending on your room size and listening preferences. But check with Mick on that.

There are also people here who are using Mac with Dyn, like Buddy and Howard, so I'd check with them to see if they considered CJ or other tube gear. I'm a SS guy, so can't help there, but I did consider the ET-5 and thought it was very good.

[NeilNZ]

Originally Posted by joeinid

Thanks Neil,

Which Habeth speakers and Leben amp do you use now?

Hi Joe,
I've got a CS600 and a pair of SHL5s. I was really worried that i would miss the deep bass that the C4s can produce, but in actual fact the SHL5s are a better match for the room I'm using them in.
Cheers,
Neil

[CDLehner]

Obviously tube is a whole different animal; for SS...I've had a revelation recently.

My old Belles 150a Hot-Rod, at 125/225 sounded sweet; but my new C-J MF-2500a pushes around my Special 25s like never before. The 2500a is rumored to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 295/451...and then for musical transients (reserve power), measured with something called IHF tone-bursts...315/600...and even 976 into a 2ohm load.

Now I know I need to account for quality of the circuit in the difference as well; but David Belles is no slouch. So I'm going to attribute at least some of the performance increase to the increased power. And Confidence (and most Dyns) are less efficient than the Special 25s.

Again, tube is a different story; but my vote, for SS, is the more the merrier as to where Dyns are concerned.

[tvih]

I'm currently blasting my C1s with all of roughly 10 Wpc of tripath juice... it's blasphemy, I know, but funnily enough it has never run out in my small room and very short listening distance, and the sound quality is solid to boot. The amp's volume knob is turned to less than 20% of maximum, and even then I often have to set the volume to well below 100% on my computer source to not blow up my ears and/or potentially annoy neighbors. So basically I'd say I'm below 1Wpc a vast majority of the time. As such I must say I've never really put much stock into high wattage output ratings. At the end of the day the wattage needed to output a certain volume is a constant, so in that sense I personally believe it doesn't really matter if an amp is rated for 10W or 1000W, as long as you don't listen at volumes that require exceeding that rating and the amp is otherwise properly designed for the job.

Even discounting the tripath, my waiting-forever-to-get-its-volume-pot-fixed Audio Analogue Puccini at 40 Wpc would have even more headroom, and easily puts out more volume than my ears can handle. When people boast 200+ Wpc or such amps outside of concert halls or something, I always ask myself - why would one need that? Obviously big rooms and longer distances mean more power, especially with transients, but even so.

One thing that also seriously puts me off high-end and high-wattage amplifiers is the often ridiculous power draw at the wall. In other words the complete lack of efficiency. An amplifier taking 100W or even much more even when not playing is just not acceptable to me By comparison, when idle or playing at normal volumes my tripath takes 5W, the Puccini about 20W, and my two cheap AVRs take 35 & 50W (newer and older model, respectively). I build my computers to be energy-efficient these days, and as such I'd expect no less from my audio gear when possible.

Since I'm new to AA (came from AVS - you can blame Puma Cat for that ), perhaps a disclaimer is in order - I'm something of a skeptic when it comes to things like amps, not to mention cables and such. I don't begrudge anyone their interest and opinions and such on those things however - even if I provide counterpoints from my own point of view and experiences, or even sometimes poke a little fun at said subjects, it's all just my own personal opinion and meant in good spirit and not to belittle anyone else. It's a diverse hobby for diverse people, and there's certainly room for all sorts of preferences and opinions

[joeinid]

Thanks tvih,

I appreciate reading about your experiences. Lately it seems that I'm focusing on speakers, at least in reviews, that seem to need some power to open up. I am glad you are finding the opposite to be true. I don't crank my music like I used to do. Thank goodness I want to be able to play them with sane tube watts as well as SS amps. I've got the SS stuff down and not worried there and now reading your post above, am not worried about my tube gear either. Great , that makes me happy. Welcome to the forums. I appreciate all points of view.