REAL wattage

[colterphoto1]

Is it me or is there a disturbing trend for receiver manufacturers and advertisers to list 'watts-per-channel' in a newer format?

I remember the 70's when there were IHC, FTC, RMS lots of differing measurement standards. Finally everyone agreed to list wattage like:

XX watts per channel at 8 ohms, 20-20,000Hz, 0.25%THD, both channels driven

so you had watts, into a described load, across a bandwidth, within a specified distortion, amp driving all channels, a nice level playing field so the buying public could made informed decisions.

It seems like since the advent of Home Theatre, when we first had Dolby Pro Logic with its reduced bandwidth rear channels that wattage began being described as follows:

xx watts per channel at 1 kHz, .5%THD

this seems a little misleading because there is no specified bandwidth nor distortion spec listed at the measured power output. Check your sunday papers. Advertisers have listed 600WATT ht setups for $399. We all know that this is hardly possible and it's probably about 25 real watts per channel.

Thoughts?

[Deang]

The only thing people know now is that they aren't getting what they think.

Checking the amperage rating, and buying by the pound still works though.

[3dzapper]

"Checking the amperage rating, and buying by the pound still works though."

If that is the case my 300b SET amp (soon to be 2A3) must have a kilowatt of power at least!!

Rick

[Deang]

I guess I should have qualified the statement by saying "solid state" -- but I guess the weight thing doesn't even apply here anymore since the advent digital switching amps. The new Sony's seem pretty killer, and I think they can even be moved around!

[Trooper]

"XX watts per channel at 8 ohms, 20-20,000Hz, 0.25%THD, both channels driven"

That's basically the format that the FTC now REQUIRES of all audio amplifier/receiver manufacturers but almost no one plays by the rules. The list of offenders is much longer than the list of non-offenders.

I suspect, but don't know for sure, that HK receiver power specs may be legit which would explain why they are lower than most similarly priced receivers.

This may also be one tangible benefit of buying a THX receiver because part of the THX spec requires an all outputs driven specfication (the manufacturer may not quote it as such but THX does measure it).