Can someone explain what the “watts” mean on a home theater system?
Question by VerdeOjos: Can someone explain what the “watts” mean on a home theater system?
I thought the higher the watts, the better the system, but why are some 500 watt systems more expensive than the 1,000 watts? I know brand of course… but any other advice? I want a good system, but i have NO idea what the sound difference would be, and mostly when they are hooked up in stores I don’t like to turn them up loud because of the other customers….
USA. California 🙂
Thanks
Best answer:
Answer by Mark T
Depends on several things:
Quality of the product – a Smeg&Grommit 200W amp is perhaps a lot cheaper than a Technics 100 Watt amp
It also depends on what you mean by watts.
RMS – True meaningful number
Music Power – This is a way of doubling the figure so it looks like a more powerful system.
PMPO (purely mythical power output).
The last one is a way for cheap products with perhaps as little as 20 watts RMS to pretend to be producing HUNDREDS of watts and manage to avoid prosecution.
ALWAYS compare like for like. Ask what the ampliers output is in RMS.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
its a measuring unit
November 13th, 2012 at 1:23 pm1 watt =amount of energy transmitted (sound)through an unit area per second
I don’t know what country you’re writing from.
However, in some countries there are two ways of showing power output. The ‘true’ wattage… and the PMPO (Peak Music Power Output) wattage.
Some manufacturers use the PMPO figure since it’s always larger. The rule is to check the true power output.
Hope this helps.
November 13th, 2012 at 1:52 pmwatt was the question?
November 13th, 2012 at 2:00 pmIt’s more about quality than quantity.
Don’t worry about watts so much when quality is so much more important. However, when you compare watts, make sure the watts are measured in RMS (not max watts) and into 8 Ohms.
Quality brands to consider are Pioneer Elite, Sony ES, Yamaha, and Onkyo… and if higher end is what you can afford, the Arcam, Rotel, and NAD.
H a p p y
November 13th, 2012 at 2:33 pmH o m e
T h e a t e r i n g !
The higher the watts doesn’t mean “the better the system”. In home audio it’s all about quality. You should only pay attention to the RMS watts. That’s the amount of continous power the source will output. Cheaper products often list peak power which should be totally ignored. Equally or more important is how clean that power is that you’re listening to. Generally the more expensive the audio product is the better the quality will be resulting in a lot better sound.
One thing to remember is you need 10 times the wattage to get twice as loud meaning 100 watts is not twice as loud as 50 watts.
brands I would recommend for receiver’s are: Denon, Onkyo and Yamaha
speakers: klipsch, definitive technology, paradigm
November 13th, 2012 at 3:02 pm