Johan Meyer

Reciever Power Output?Confused

I have read many threads regarding this topic However
I would Like to confirm a few issues!!As I am fairly new to this HT world but the more threads I have been reading the more intressting I have become rearding all these issues!!

A question

If the reciever specs are... lets say 80 Watts [RMS] Discrete output per channel does this mean that when all channels are being pushed to there limit at the same time there will be nothing less than 80 watts per channel?

This I was told is impossible in ANY Reciever and that the power[80 Watts in this example] would be spread over all the channels depending on what channel needs more watts!

This seems to be quite an issue wrt recievers and would like
to know if this is at all posible?

If so what recievers do supply a constant X watts per channel even when the amps are being pushed to there limit?

John Garcia

Unless you are playing the same thing from each speaker at the same time, you will never have a situation where all speakers are drawing 80W at one time.

With a receiver each channel is powered by a single power source, so the available current is spread across all of them. In a situation where each channel was drawing a significant amount of current, it is likely that many receivers will not deliver their claimed power.

"The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain't so." - Mark Twain

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imported_Andrew Pratt

The short answer is it depends

There's a couple of ways of reporting receiver output power with most companies either choosing to state the wattage at all channels driven into a standard 8ohm speaker from 20hz to 20 khz. This is the prefered method that we like to see power ratings for but its obviously not easy for a receiver to deliver the same current to all speakers at once so many manufactures cheat and only publish ratings for either a few channels or all channels but not into 8 ohms or not at full range. For example you might see something rated at 100 watts all channels driven but the fine print says that was into 6 ohms or 8 ohms but only 1 khz which is an easier load so the ratings would be higher.

See this link for some comparisons where some did surpass their ratings while others failed.