advertisement


Future power consumption with home electronics!

wow&flutter

wow&flutter

pfm Member
Struck me tonight reading through the “Sublime” post that there was talk of some hifi items running hot and potentially consuming lots of mains power. Is this a sustainable model for our beloved hifi manufacturers.

For many here I suspect it’s a (financial) price you’re happy to pay and for many not an issue. But with ever increasing fuel costs would we welcome a change in direction with manufacturers producing low consumption goods for driving highly efficient speakers?

I’m sure I caught a review of a tv a year or so back claiming to be somewhat more efficient for its size (may have been a Philips model not sure) but heard and read no more about it. Then there were EU regs for vacuum cleaners a few years ago as well.

I guess if you want the watts out you need to consume watts first be that with hifi or televisions. Of course we may be such a small demographic it makes sod all difference but can we see the next generation happy to have music in their homes that spins the lecky meter like it’s a 78! :D
 
I imagine that the low unit numbers of things like valve- or class-A-based solid state amps might escape blanket legislation.

Thinking about it, my ~300w-at-idle amp costs (let's say) 6p/hour to run. And in a given week it maybe sees 10hrs of use, 15hrs tops. So, let's round that up to £1/week. That's buttons compared to some other things I have around my house - washing machine, electric oven, two large TVs (that use less power but are on a lot more). And then there's the EV, which although I don't charge it at home much, will pull 40+ units on a full charge (~£7ish) per 200 miles driven (say 140 in winter).

I think there are lower hanging fruit than niche audio products to deal with first. Though I'm sure to switch my beastie off when I'm not using it.
 
Mmm I'm thinking about turning my class A monos off when not in use
Something I've never done...
But electric is just getting more and more pricey
 
I suspect the gap in pounds/kWh between electric and gas will close during the coming year-or-few. Basically, both costs escalating. Hence we may end up with electric heating or heat pumps being more common. On that basis a class A amp in the winter just becomes a part of your heating system.

I don't think they'll need to legislate on things like class A amps because price will apply the pressure. But this depends on sanity becoming more common amongst politicians, so I could be wrong. Some legislation might happen as a way to "be seen to be 'doing something' "!
 
It’s not just class A and valves - when I found out how much my class A/B ATC SCM100 ASLs consumed I made sure to turn them off whenever they weren’t in use.
 
If you spend your money on efficient loudspeakers your class A amp only needs milliamp range to operate at a watt or 3 .
Although I'm sure there are other draw backs that will be pointed out
 
stuwils said:
your I7 pc with gaming graphics requires a lot of power.

Rgds
Stuart
Click to expand...


My similar gaming pc requries a lot of power, when its gaming... if its just 'on' but idling its drawing ~40 watts from the wall (screen off). Only draws lots when working its little arse off.

Much like a class D amp, small power draw until its needed.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RoA
I think this will be more of an issue as time goes on. Class D is obviously very efficient and runs cool in an amplifier, so there is that. Many people enjoy them.

We sell @CJ14 EWA amplifiers, many are Class A (both SE and deep class A PP A/B). They are always going to be monsters when it comes to power, and it is up to the consumer what he/she finds acceptable. I think it is similar to a car enthusiast who drives an economical (or electric) car during the week, but keeps a gas guzzling monster or an inefficient classic car for occasional weekend enjoyment, i.e. not wholly indefensible.

Colin is working on bridging what he sees as the gap between the sound of Class A and more efficient A/B amps, and is really getting somewhere I think. He is prototyping the base of a new range which he refined from the M-50 amp, which has a high performance single ended class A driver stage (about 5W) at the input of the amplifier, feeding into a very efficient A/B output stage. It may not be revolutionary, but he thinks it can be done very, very well. To the point where it is not simply an innovation for efficiency's sake, but a sonic improvement.
 
ABCaudio said:
I think this will be more of an issue as time goes on. Class D is obviously very efficient and runs cool in an amplifier, so there is that. Many people enjoy them.

We sell @CJ14 EWA amplifiers, many are Class A (both SE and deep class A PP A/B). They are always going to be monsters when it comes to power, and it is up to the consumer what he/she finds acceptable. I think it is similar to a car enthusiast who drives an economical (or electric) car during the week, but keeps a gas guzzling monster or an inefficient classic car for occasional weekend enjoyment, i.e. not wholly indefensible.

Colin is working on bridging what he sees as the gap between the sound of Class A and more efficient A/B amps, and is really getting somewhere I think. He is prototyping the base of a new range which he refined from the M-50 amp, which has a high performance single ended class A driver stage (about 5W) at the input of the amplifier, feeding into a very efficient A/B output stage. It may not be revolutionary, but he thinks it can be done very, very well. To the point where it is not simply an innovation for efficiency's sake, but a sonic improvement.
Click to expand...

Is that similar, in principle, to what Sugden did with the ANV-50? Works very well to my ears so if Colin is heading in that direction it could be very good indeed.
 
The EU directive on vacuum cleaners (and I think there may have been one on hairdryers too, but not sure) was driven by the fact that manufacturers were starting to use power as a marketing tool. So my 1200W vacuum is obviously better than his puny 1000W model. Whereas in reality, no domestic vacuum cleaner application really calls for >800-1000W. So there was a directive, to see off a stupid 'arms race' which could have seen domestic consumption by appliances double, whereas the need was for it to halve. It served as a warning to other manufacturers of appliances (eg toasters, microwaves, washing machines) not to go down a similar path.

I doubt our audio is at risk, and there's a valid engineering basis for Class A, unlike the basis for a 2Kw hoover.
 
It is all trivial compared to Right To Repair etc. Running a 40 year old Krell or whatever for a few hours a week is far more environmentally sustainable than throwing a new piece of Class D Chinese junk into landfill every three years. I suspect the most environmental destructive electronic things I buy are flat screen TVs, I’m on my third in under 20 years. The Trinitron CRT that preceded them still works fine! High-end hi-fi really is an irrelevance and thankfully guitarists will act as our (almost) human shield as no way in hell will they give up their nice valve amps. There are way more of them than class A or valve hi-fi users.
 
Tony L said:
It is all trivial compared to Right To Repair etc. Running a 40 year old Krell or whatever for a few hours a week is far more environmentally sustainable than throwing a new piece of Class D Chinese junk into landfill every three years. I suspect the most environmental destructive electronic things I buy are flat screen TVs, I’m on my third in under 20 years. The Trinitron CRT that preceded them still works fine! High-end hi-fi really is an irrelevance and thankfully guitarists will act as our (almost) human shield as no way in hell will they give up their nice valve amps. There are way more of them than class A or valve hi-fi users.
Click to expand...

This is probably what pushed me back into HiFi, I was relatively happy with My little Denon CEOL streamer until the class-d in it died sending DC to my speakers. Both bass drivers were toast and when I opened the Denon it was obviously a piece of disposable electronics (and I don't mind working with SMT stuff). So a A&R A60 was acquired as a replacement and duly re-capped, which I'm still listening to now. IMHO the same situation can be applied to cars, it doesn't matter how efficient they are if you keep making them from scratch rather than giving them a decent life cycle.
 
Given that 'real' music tends to have:

1) A peak/mean ratio well over 10dB

2) Lot of the time the level is well below ffff

and

3) Human hearing (and speakers) tend to distort at high levels

4) People generally play at levels way lower than they realise.

The sensible (IMHO) approach is to have 'class A' behaviour up to a given fraction of the max rated power. e.g Have a 75 Watt RMS continuous max rating with more like a 5 Watt 'class A' region.

This is still inefficient because the high bias has to drop a long way though the output devices. But not as inefficient as all-the-way-class-A.
 
Tony L said:
It is all trivial compared to Right To Repair etc. Running a 40 year old Krell or whatever for a few hours a week is far more environmentally sustainable than throwing a new piece of Class D Chinese junk into landfill every three years.
Click to expand...

I'd be interested to see some measured/known figures/stats to back that.
 
Perhaps also worth pointing out that some designs connect the drivers in parallel with the output devices. That can tend to act as a 'class A filler' in the transition region. Designers did this long before QUAD promoted their 'current dumping' alternative.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top