Hello,

I have the Triton One.R, and I'm think of eventually upgrading my amp, but I want to get an idea of what kind of power I need. I currently have a NAD C 399 which claims to be able to put 400 Watts into 4 ohms. This somewhat matches what I'm seeing in my room using a cheap but +-2db calibrated sound meter with C weighting. On some dynamic songs, I'm getting max values of 116 db (0.125 second window) with a rough average in the 85-90 range (1 second window). (Don't want to damage my hearing by going beyond this average level.) With 92 sensitivity (as measured by various magazines) and two speakers, the baseline is 95 db at 1 meter. Given my room and listening position around 10 feet away, this gives about 90 db at my seat with 1 watt. Assuming I'm getting 400 watts that gives me 90+26 = 116. Spot on.

This means each speakers is doing 118 db at 1 meter. Seems a bit crazy. I looked up the top of the line Perlisten speakers and they quote a max of 116 db (presumably at 1 meter.) I looked up the Magico M9 and they quote max 120 db at 1 meter with minimal distortion. What's the max for the Triton One.R. They claim it can handle 650 Watts. Assuming that's peak wattage, that gives 120 db at 1 meter. Is that the max? I guess at some point the powered woofers will run out of watts. Is that how they set the limit? I assume they must have a lot of distortion at that point given the M9 cost 100 times as much.

Obviously I don't want to listen to an average value near those maxes, but I assume what makes these speakers sound so alive is that they can do these types of dynamic peaks. (And why they can sound pretty bad on older compressed music.) If all of this is correct, then I probably don't want an higher quality but lower wattage amp. (I was thinking about the Axxess Forte at 100 watts into 8 ohms.) On the flip side, I guess the limit is about 600 watts into 4 ohms which is the max of a few expensive integrated amps.