Audio Equipment Stereo Blog

help with watts for audio equipment?

tmick10 asked:


if a guitar amp emmits 120 watts of audio power into the speakers does that mean that the amp uses 120 watts of electrical power?

i need a converter for a peavey 6505 stack amp - 230v to 110v - can i use a converter that supports up to 200watts or are audio watts and electrical watts different?

thanks

Loretta

Tags: Guitar Amp, Peavey 6505, Stack

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 4:00 am and is filed under Other - Electronics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “help with watts for audio equipment?”

1. wires says:

   October 6, 2008 at 6:31 am

   The watts are pretty much the same. The issue is how efficient is your amplifier? If you put out 120 watts you need to use more than that to make up for inefficiencies or losses in the amp. High quality amps can require about twice as much energy as they put out. So 240 watts wouldn’t be unreasonable for input power. If you don’t turn your amp up all the way, a 200 watt converter should work fine. If you want all the power your amp can deliver you might need a little bigger converter.
2. Hillbilly Bob says:

   October 7, 2008 at 12:40 pm

   Check the specifications on the amp for how much power the device consumes. It will be more than the audio watts out. The value might be given in Watts, VA (watts for the most part), or maybe just in amps, so multiply by 230V to get VA. Give yourself a 10% fudge factor and size your converter accordingly. Good luck.