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Vintage Receiver Power

cool9

cool9

Super Member
I wanted to know if the vintage amplifiers (Pioneer, Marantz, etc.) at 20-60 Watts/Channel can stand up to amplifiers made today that are equal/greater than 100 Watts/Channel (if they're driving speakers that are rated at 100 Watts or thereabouts)?
Just wondering since I see a lot of the vintage receivers were made at lower wattage.
 
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I'll put my pair of Mac MC60s (60 watts each) up against any 100 watt unit, anytime. Tubes just seem to have more punch or something. I can't even come close to cranking them up all the way.
Glenn
 
heheheh, OH YEAH! the Power rating was different back then as it is now. 10 watts back then is nearly equivalent to 100 watts today. At least that's my take on comparisons I have done between new & old systems. My Pioneer SX 1980 at 10 watts on the meter sounds as loud as my newer Kenwood 7.1 receiver at nearly full blast of it's 100 watt rating per channel, powering the same exact speakers. Heck, even my integrated Pioneer SA-7500II can get louder than the Kenwood 7.1 and it's only 45 Watts per channel, another great vintage piece from 1979.

Charlie:nutz:
 
BigTuna is absolutely right: the definitions and standards used to determine "watts" have changed a number of times over the years.

A lot of gear today that claims "100 Watts" or more, if measured by the standards of the seventies "receiver wars" measurements, would be perhaps 10-25 watts.

The worst, most exaggerated claims are the "PMPO" ratings that were especially popular in the late 80s/90s (If I recall the timing right). Basically this was the most you could put through ONE channel, in optimal conditions, at one frequency, with all else off, for a fraction of a second, just before the thing burned up and died. It was a virtually useless, meaningless measurement for anyone, probably used to disguise the fact that boomboxes usually only put out a few (usually about 4 or 5) real watts, and even the loudest ones ever made barely went over 20 watts, and then only with extreme distortion and eventual self-destruction.

In contrast, the ratings used in the 70s were REAL watts of real music power that could be put out of BOTH channels CONTINUOUSLY for at least one hour, but in fact for days (or weeks or months or perhaps longer) on end, without significant distortion or damage. This was a meaningful measurement of real, useful power. And most of the time, the ratings were conservative; the gear could actually exceed the given power ratings if put to the test.

Most of the time, we don't put anywhere remotely near the power of an amplifier through our speakers. In fact, cranking up a vintage power amplifier with a 100+ watt rating all the way to its maximum output, would make your ears bleed, just before it destroyed your speakers! That extra power is there so that the amplifier (whether part of a receiver or separate) can have "power to spare" for handling peak transients and such, while remaining in an easy, comfortable zone where there is minimal distortion.

The odds are good that a vintage receiver that claims 50 watts per channel capacity --if up to spec-- will play louder, longer and with less distortion than any typical modern gear that claims 100+ watts. ...unless you are talking about high-end gear that would give more conservative/accurate ratings (like, say, McIntosh).

This especially applies to any "home theater" type amplifiers: they use some weird voodoo mathematics to calculate their power output, too!
 
My Marantz 2250B and Pioneer SX828 are both 50 watt units and play very loud. They also weigh almost as much as my tube receivers.
 
OK Quick Review of wattage:

The most accepted and proper power/wattage standard is RMS (Root Mean Squared). Other claims of such nonsense as "music power" is useless. Additionally, power is referenced to a distortion level, so a lot of the home theater in a box that claims high amounts of power also will state in fine print "at 10% distortion".

The other factor is power is rated in reference to a speaker load (usually 8 ohm nominal impedance: the actual speaker impeadance varies greatly with frequency, but that's another matter). A lot of inexpensive setups cannot put out as much power at 4 ohm speaker loads as opposed to a 8 ohm load.

If the solid state amp/receiver is rated at 100W RMS, then that is what it puts out. In those cases, then they are in fact a lot more powerful than a 20/30 watt per channel tube amp.

The subjective loudness factor one experiences with tube amps has more to due with the facts of harmonic distortion differences between tubes and solid state.

Lastly, while this subject has a lot more involved than this simplified explanation, it bears noting that music is generally played at "normal" listening levels using very little wattage.
 
I've noticed that a lot of modern receiver have a different taper to the volume control than I'm used to. Most vintage receivers spend most of their time below 25% volume, but some modern ones are around 60% at normal levels.
 
Lot of bad information here. Power used to be measured over a frequency range, 20-20k hertz. Now they measure it usually at 1khz, which gives them a higher wattage. Google this for a more detailed answer.
 
ImBroke said:
Lot of bad information here. Power used to be measured over a frequency range, 20-20k hertz. Now they measure it usually at 1khz, which gives them a higher wattage. Google this for a more detailed answer.
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Not sure I read bad info in this thread, but welcome to AK anyways :thmbsp:
 
cool9 said:
I wanted to know if the vintage amplifiers (Pioneer, Marantz, etc.) at 20-60 Watts/Channel can stand up to amplifiers made today that are equal/greater than 100 Watts/Channel (if they're driving speakers that are rated at 100 Watts or thereabouts)?
Just wondering since I see a lot of the vintage receivers were made at lower wattage.
Click to expand...

I had a TEAC 100wpc at 8ohms made in the 90's and I was impressed with the power of it UNTIL I happen to get a Harman Kardon HK730 from the flea market that's only rated 45watts. I ran it, DANG!! It sounded as if it's just as powerful as my TEAC. That started my vintage collection. One receiver in my collection, Pioneer SX-1010 is also rated 100wpc at 8ohms and it walked all over the TEAC without a hitch.
 
cool9 said:
I wanted to know if the vintage amplifiers (Pioneer, Marantz, etc.) at 20-60 Watts/Channel can stand up to amplifiers made today that are equal/greater than 100 Watts/Channel (if they're driving speakers that are rated at 100 Watts or thereabouts)?
Just wondering since I see a lot of the vintage receivers were made at lower wattage.
Click to expand...

I had a TEAC 100wpc at 8ohms made in the 90's and I was impressed with the power of it UNTIL I happen to get a Harman Kardon HK730 from the flea market that's only rated 45watts. I ran it, DANG!! It sounded as if it's just as powerful as my TEAC. That started my vintage collection. One receiver in my collection, Pioneer SX-1010 is also rated 100wpc at 8ohms and it walked all over the TEAC without a hitch. The same speakers that handled TEAC fine could not keep up with the SX-1010 without the woofers overexcersion.
 
Honesty only resides with 2-channel and that is the problem. In 1974 the government specs were required to reel in naughty numbers from shady dealers. It worked. Stereo was independently tested and given a rating specifying RMS watt per channel at a given distortion figure (Total Harmonic Distortion, THD) from 20 – 20,000 kHz. For example: “50-Watts per channel at .01% THD at 8 ohms” is quite good, making a hefty receiver and odds in our favor of getting a good stereo.

Now the public gets fleeced. The problem rears its ugly head because the rule was explicitly designed for 2-channel and to exempt transistor radios, a single channel. Unfortunately HT systems have wild numbers because they have MORE then 2-channels. Here is a rare and shameful HT spec from a reputable manufacturer- “1000 Watts”, and buried is a whopping “10% THD @ 3 ohms” figure. Most HT systems don’t give that much information. My friend proudly owns it- it sounds muddy and lacks a lot of subtle detail. An old-school receiver would overwhelm it without a sweat. The law should be updated and enforced.
 
About 3 months before I got into vintage SS, I got a reasonable quality Philips mini system for Christmas. On the box it Claimed 90Watts, Then in brackets (45+45) so its actually 45Watts, then in smaller writing it has "10% THD". Almost all of the vintage stuff usually have very low THD. Pretty much same story as Quest.

I replaced that Philips with an old 10~15 watt amp from 1973 and it sounded way better and had much more grunt. Sounded great through my 200W speakers.
 
if you have a home theater receiver that is rated at say 100WPC, once you hook up all those speakers.. it's more likely to drop that power down to 50 or 60wpc only.. so keep that in mind. it's now using 100WPC all the time.. and once it dips that low.. it's putting a lot of stress on the amps in the receiver.. that's why some of them run pretty hot.

I have found that vintage watts are more accurate. You'd be surprised how few watts you are using when listening to your system. maybe only 15 or 20.. but it also depends on how much current your amp/receiver is capable of delivering when needed.
 
Danger Boy said:
if you have a home theater receiver that is rated at say 100WPC, once you hook up all those speakers.. it's more likely to drop that power down to 50 or 60wpc only.. so keep that in mind. it's now using 100WPC all the time.. and once it dips that low.. it's putting a lot of stress on the amps in the receiver.. that's why some of them run pretty hot.

I have found that vintage watts are more accurate. You'd be surprised how few watts you are using when listening to your system. maybe only 15 or 20.. but it also depends on how much current your amp/receiver is capable of delivering when needed.
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Look for the words "all channels driven". Without that the spec is pretty meaningless, especially if you're talking about home theater where "all channels" means 5, 6 or 7 channels!
 
I am shocked at how loud my Pioneer SX-737(35 wpc) supply to my Klipsch Fortes(98dB@1 watt), especially in my relatively small living room. Anything about 9-10 o'clock is too loud, and I like my music loud.
 
It is basically depend upon how efficient are your speakers, what is their sensitivity measured in dB/W/m. If you have speakers with 98 dB/W/m sensitivity you will need only 0.5W per channel to fill 15 - 20 m^2 room with considerably loud sound. Seriously, it is not a joke. With 5W of output power I have sensible vibration of my heavy wooden table.
 
LinuxGuru said:
It is basically depend upon how efficient are your speakers, what is their sensitivity measured in dB/W/m. If you have speakers with 98 dB/W/m sensitivity you will need only 0.5W per channel to fill 15 - 20 m^2 room with considerably loud sound. Seriously, it is not a joke. With 5W of output power I have sensible vibration of my heavy wooden table.
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From a purely performance-based outlook, yes, but I think what is at issue here is the honesty of the rating. You may only need 5W of honest power, but 30 years ago, that meant buying an amplifier with a rating between 5 and 10W; today you have to buy one with a rating between 50 and 100W to get the same power.

None of the various "watt rating" methods is necessarily better related to the actual loads that playing music puts on a receiver. What makes one method more useful than another is standardization, which in the US only exists if the FTC method is used. If everyone was standardized on the same definition of "PMPO at 1000Hz" it would be just as useful; you would simply tell the sales drone at your local HT showroom not to demo you anything with a rating of less than 500WPC and you'd probably do ok.
 
gkimeng said:
From a purely performance-based outlook, yes, but I think what is at issue here is the honesty of the rating. You may only need 5W of honest power, but 30 years ago, that meant buying an amplifier with a rating between 5 and 10W; today you have to buy one with a rating between 50 and 100W to get the same power.

None of the various "watt rating" methods is necessarily better related to the actual loads that playing music puts on a receiver. What makes one method more useful than another is standardization, which in the US only exists if the FTC method is used. If everyone was standardized on the same definition of "PMPO at 1000Hz" it would be just as useful; you would simply tell the sales drone at your local HT showroom not to demo you anything with a rating of less than 500WPC and you'd probably do ok.
Click to expand...

Yes, advertised power rating may be crappy figure indeed. There is very simple method to calculate approx RMS output power - take max power consumption (usually written on the back panel), and then divide it by 2 and number of channels. Thus, if you have total max power consumption of stereo 2-channel amp say for example 200W, then each channel is probably capable of 50W of output power with value of harmonic distortions specified in device's technical passport. If the amp have more then 2 channels (e.g. 7) they are probably build using the same circuit, so in terms of output power they are equal.
 
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