Amplifier Wattage Ratings - Traps

In this post i will explain what's the matter with the output Wattage of the Amplifiers.

After i explained what's happening with the Watts in the article called "Explaining The Watts",i think it's time to face the truth about the marketing tactics and the fake rates on the Amplifiers.

Every single Amplifier out there (well... not the chinese) are having Power Ratings like Watts RMS,Maximum,or even Peak Power.

Here you can find the explanation of the above and some of the other rates:


Watts RMS: This term is used to describe the amount of the average continue power (Long Term Power in Speakers) that an Amplifier can output playing 20hz-20khz Sine Waves and is rated with a Distortion limit (to see the "clean" power output) and an Impedance like "100w 20hz-20khz on 8ohms @ 0.05% THD (Total Harmonic Distortion or "Clipping")".

Watts RMS rated @ 1khz: Marketing trick even if the THD is low... Almost all the Amplifiers can give more power to 1khz than on other frequencies,so the manufacturers are using that rate instead of 20hz-20khz average rate for reasons that i think you can understand.

Maximum Wattage: Some people are thinking that this and the Peak rates are useless,but both in fact are extremely useful.
The Maximum Wattage rate is the maximum amount of power that the Amplifier can output most times with super high THD.

Peak Wattage on Amplifiers or "Short Term" in speakers: The amount of power that can be given only for just a moment.
This is important because 300w Long Term rated Speakers that can handle a Peak of 600w,can be blown by a 300w Amplifier that can Peak by playing Music to 700w for example.

Music Power: The amount of power the Speakers can handle or the Amplifier can give by playing Amplified Signal (Music).

Everything plays its role here.

For example an Amplifier rated to 70w on 8ohms with 0.05% THD is actually capable to give like 150w with way higher THD (Distortion) or even 200w,in case the Power Supply can provide that power to the Amplifier and the ICs aren't out of there limits.

If you have an Amplifier rated at 70w (Continuous Average Power) at 8ohms with 0.07% THD,and speakers that can work with 70w continuous power,and can be damaged with 120w,like the Jamo Studio 160 that are rated at 70w Long Term (Average Watts RMS or more correctly: Average Continuous Power) and 120w Short Term (the amount of power that melts the coils),you might can actually damage the Speakers even if the Amplifier - Speaker rates are matching because if you play Music loudly the output Wattage will be increased (not just Peaking) at least by 50% of the Continuous Rate,most times with heavy Clipping that can lead the Speakers to damage.

Some Amplifiers are rated at 10% THD which is an insane level of distortion in order to look more powerful.
If an Amplifier is rated at 100w (20hz-20khz,8ohms) with 10% THD (20hz-20khz),the maximum "Clean" and fully useable amount of power will be less than that rate.
If we say that Amplifier can give 50 "Clean" Watts (the real useable) with low distortion level like 0.05%,the 100w with 10% THD could easily be something close to its Maximum output level and not a "Watt RMS Rate" which describes the maximum clean output with distortion bellow 0% or 1%.

Notes:

You basically don't use more than 0.5w for your daily listening,but cranking up the volume on an Amplifier that has High THD will result to bad annoying sound.
It's not nice to listen to Squared Sine Waves.

Some manufacturers are giving out wrong values that some times are Peak values or rates on 1khz just to make their equipment look powerful.

Rates on entry level and midrange 5-7Channel Amplifiers are only on 2Channel Stereo Mode and not the amount of power it can give to 5-7Channel.

Rates on Stereo Amplifiers from trustable manufacturers like Yamaha are most time real because they don't have anything to hide,for example the use of cheap power supplies like on cheap Multichannel Amplifiers that have to power 5 Channels Amplifiers with High Wattage (let's say 5x100w) which is impossible.
This isn't happening with Stereo Amplifiers.

Rates on PA Power Amplifiers are always real,but manufacturers like Behringer are providing the Maximum Power Output (which is still useable) instead of the "Clean" Average Power,but you can always find the truth by checking on the manual or datasheet of the device (Behringer and others are having available all the measurements on the manuals).

I think that's all for now,let's hope i didn't make any mistake.