Apologies for bringing this back if it was discussed before.
I have 2 rooms that I listen to music in at my house. The 1 room is my dedicated room where the system was build over time to get to where it is. The other room is my lounge where is was about getting something decent to play while sitting there and on the main patio with the lounge stacking door opened. Most of you followed my upgrade path which involved speakers, preamp and power amplifier upgrade.
I used to drive my dedicated room LCR speakers with a Rotel RMB1585 which is 200w x5 . The other 2 channels of this beast were driving my 2 speakers in the lounge via zone 2. I sold the RMB1585 and replaced it with a Mark Levinson which is only 50 watts more but soon realised the sonic differences of the 2 amps. I can?t say much for head room because the Rotel had the headroom too but comes nowhere close to the Mark Levinson on sonic bliss.
My zone 2 was quiet for 2 months because I sold the power amp that drove it but yesterday I decided to run it with one of my small Rotels which I use for my atmos speakers in the dedicated room. It?s a 60w x 6 and I?m so impressed by how well it is driving my lounge speakers (B&W CM9). It?s driving them so effortlessly and it has all the headroom too despite me doubting it hence I did not connect the lounge speakers to it for 2 months.
This leaves me wondering if hifi market is driven by marketeers instead of substance. We saw in the camera world where megapixels increased significantly with each new model but we know that they quality of a picture is not in the megapixels but other factors that drives quality. Looking at my RMB1585 which was 200w and the Mark Levinson which is only 50w more one can tell that the sonic differences between them is not in the wattage but other areas that determine sonic quality. Looking at my lounge setup also which is now driven by a power amp that?s only 30% of the power of the one I used before but doing amazingly well tells me that the watts don?t tell the full story.
My question is, are watts just marketing hype or what?
I have 2 rooms that I listen to music in at my house. The 1 room is my dedicated room where the system was build over time to get to where it is. The other room is my lounge where is was about getting something decent to play while sitting there and on the main patio with the lounge stacking door opened. Most of you followed my upgrade path which involved speakers, preamp and power amplifier upgrade.
I used to drive my dedicated room LCR speakers with a Rotel RMB1585 which is 200w x5 . The other 2 channels of this beast were driving my 2 speakers in the lounge via zone 2. I sold the RMB1585 and replaced it with a Mark Levinson which is only 50 watts more but soon realised the sonic differences of the 2 amps. I can?t say much for head room because the Rotel had the headroom too but comes nowhere close to the Mark Levinson on sonic bliss.
My zone 2 was quiet for 2 months because I sold the power amp that drove it but yesterday I decided to run it with one of my small Rotels which I use for my atmos speakers in the dedicated room. It?s a 60w x 6 and I?m so impressed by how well it is driving my lounge speakers (B&W CM9). It?s driving them so effortlessly and it has all the headroom too despite me doubting it hence I did not connect the lounge speakers to it for 2 months.
This leaves me wondering if hifi market is driven by marketeers instead of substance. We saw in the camera world where megapixels increased significantly with each new model but we know that they quality of a picture is not in the megapixels but other factors that drives quality. Looking at my RMB1585 which was 200w and the Mark Levinson which is only 50w more one can tell that the sonic differences between them is not in the wattage but other areas that determine sonic quality. Looking at my lounge setup also which is now driven by a power amp that?s only 30% of the power of the one I used before but doing amazingly well tells me that the watts don?t tell the full story.
My question is, are watts just marketing hype or what?
