OT: Anyone remember this vintage audio amp?

Too bad, actually quite a few amplifiers had that feature, my wife's parents had one in Florida.

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 Thanks, 
    - Win

My current amp has that feature.

So does my Nakamichi receiver, and it is black. But it was hardly part of a separates 'music centre'. But on the upside, the quality is so memorable , - head and shoulders above the more commercial equipment that people migh t well be seeking one out if they had one and moved onto something else (no t as good) I threw out my 100W Technics as soon as I heard how much bette r this one was!

This. Given the effects of speakers, room acoustics, and whatever you're u sing for input, the quality of the amplifier is likely down in the undetect able range.

But, consider another complicating factor. The spectral response of your e ars has to be vastly different from what it was a couple decades back. If you found that identical amp somehow preserved without any degradation, I d oubt it would sound the same, now that so much of your high frequency heari ng has disappeared.

Amplifiers..... I have waited this long. But here goes:

a) With a very broad brush, the single significant characteristic of any gi ven amplifier is Headroom. How much unclipped power can it deliver, for how long. b) Speaker power ratings are not based on what an amplifier can deliver, bu t on how much power the speaker can absorb continuously over what spectrum. So a speaker rated at 50 amps (theoretically) can absorb 50 watt of power continuously of a standard spectrum. A 50-watt continuous sine wave, for in stance would pretty much melt any driver it was directed to in short order. c) The single most significant aspect of any signal is Peak-to-Average. So, most (not all) heavy metal has a P/A of about 10 dB. Well recorded classic al music will have a P/A of about 20 dB, with some (Saint-Saens Organ Symph ony) as much as 30 dB (again, well recorded). d) An amplifier, theoretically, is not to add or remove artifacts to the si gnal. Most, if even reasonably well designed, achieve that status fairly we ll.

Cutting to the chase: I keep and use regularly, three significantly differe nt styles of speakers. They are all 'rated' at about 50 watts. They are all relatively inefficient at 85 dB at one meter at one watt. Two of the three pairs are driven by what is best described as brute-force amps (more than

200 wpc/rms) and are in large rooms. The last is a sub/sat system driven by a 17 wpc/rms tube amp in a very small room.

In every case, the limitation on the volume I can achieve is the amplifier headroom, not the speakers. The one brute-force amp is *adequate* to drive the Maggies playing the aforementioned Organ Symphony at below-ear-bleed vo lumes. It would clip if played any louder, whereas the speakers would be fi ne but-for the clipping (and for the record, most solid-state amps clip bad ly). The baby Dynaco (ST-35) does well enough at far-below ear-bleed levels in a small room. As it is tube, I do not worry about clipping damage if I go over-the-top on volume.

The AR3as make up the third-most-used set, also driven by a brute-force amp , and also do nicely in a medium room. And, yes, I do moderate so as not to clip.

Cutting to the chase, headroom is singularly critical to decent sound repro duction.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

(and for the record, most solid-state amps clip badly). The baby Dynaco (ST-

Okay, trying to make sense for my uses, I think you're saying:

1. most amps don't distort
2. unless you use enough power to clip

and I never do, so for my purposes, amplifiers are not the weak point.

1. But if you want to play really loud, which you might need to do when your music has a wide dynamic range, you need lots of power in the amp.

And the corollary might be that given enough watts per channel, decent amplifiers are equivalent.

Did I get that right?

Pretty much got it right, yes.

Amplifiers are very seldom the weak point, unless driven to clipping on a regular basis.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA