Au contraire, Greg! Amp buyers often let wattage claims influence their purchasing decisions. A visit to some of the popular harp forums will convince you of that. That is precisely why amp makers might be prone to inflate the numbers.
Some time ago I bought an amp from a "well established, respected amp
builder" who claimed a rather impressive wattage number. When I scoped it,
it was delivering less than half of his claim. I contacted the engineer who
had done the original design work and found the claimed number was BS. The
amp was working properly when I got it.
The amp builder/seller was evidently using the rule of thumb I wrote about
in my post: A tube from the X family automatically gets a claim of Y watts
per tube. In this case, it was misleading and dishonest.
There is nothing wrong with demanding that amp builders tell the truth about
the amount of power their amps generate. I contacted several amp builders
when I was doing research for this article and found that most of them
were using a valid method to measure watts. The methods differed enough to
make the numbers unsuitable for direct comparisons, but they were derived in
a logical fashion.
Greg, all the amp makers on harp-L may indeed build amps "that are loud
enough for just about any situation," but that is not the point. The point
is clarity and honesty in the marketplace. For example, automaker's claims
are tested by the EPA and by others. As a result, claims of mileage and
performance are valid enough for worthwhile comparisons. There is no reason
we cannot have that kind of transparency with harp amps.
-Rick Davis The Blues Harp Amps Blog http://www.bluesharpamps.blogspot.com/
On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 12:48 AM, Greg Heumann <greg@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Rick - it is a fair question and you did a good job of explaining the
issue. Expecting that all amp manufacturers are suddenly going to begin
publishing power specs based upon a standard you propose on HARP-L (even if
we all demand it) however, is pretty unrealistic. If you want to make it
happen you need to form an amplifier industry association, encourage all the
amp makers to join it, succeed at getting them to, and put this on the
agenda. Examples of such organizations are IEEE (engineering), the RIAA
(recording), CTIA (cell phones.) In a previous career I had to work with
CTIA. Getting anything done is like pushing on a rope. Get yourself a staff,
a large budget and plenty of time to spend.
In the mean time, we have among us on this list a handful of well
established, respected amp builders. And they all make amps that are loud
enough for just about any situation. At which point, who cares about watts?
It is, as you point out, not a very good way to compare amps anyway. The
present "typical" ranges (5W, 15W, 30W, 50W) are close enough to know
whether two amps are in the same ball park.
/Greg
http://www.blowsmeaway.com http://www.bluestateband.net http://cdbaby.com/cd/bluestate
_______________________________________________ Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l