Power Ratings in Modern AVR's

[vsound5150]

Each channel is capable of that power delivery but not all 7 ch at the same instant.

Pioneer states 110W "All Channels Driven" in their specs. for this model VSX-23TXH

 

[vsound5150]

That's a power consumption spec for a particular rating/classification purpose, its not the max capacity of the power supply.

True, oh so manufacturers are hiding more info. from us.

 

[lovinthehd]

Pioneer states 110W "All Channels Driven" in their specs. for this model VSX-23TXH

I noticed that from the product page but looking in the manual it's a little more cautious, with a footnote indicating its the FTC rule, so 2ch measurement....

 

[PENG]

As I said, we don't have enough information to compare power consumption specs between products of different manufacturers in meaningful ways because they may not follow the same rules. It is however, reasonable to compare the power consumption specs of two class AB Pioneer amps such as the VSX-23 and VSX-52 and try to correlate that to their output ratings.

 

[PENG]

Pioneer states 110W "All Channels Driven" in their specs. for this model VSX-23TXH

No way, following is from the manual:

Amplifier section Continuous average power output of 110 watts* per channel, min., at 8 ohms, from 20 Hz to 20 000 Hz with no more than 0.09 %** total harmonic distortion. Front (stereo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 W + 110 W Power output (1 kHz, 6 Ω, 0.05 %, 1 ch driven) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 W per channel Guaranteed speaker impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Ω to 8 Ω, less than 8 Ω to 6 Ω (setting required) * Measured pursuant to the Federal Trade Commission’s Trade Regulation rule on Power Output Claims for Amplifiers ** Measured by Audio Spectrum Analyzer

So 110WX2 is for two channel stereo, 20-20,000 Hz 0.09% THD. Did you read the S&V review in the link I posted, on the VSX-52/53?

 

[Halon451]

lol I just had a funny thought picturing an engineer in some AVR manufacturing lab rushing in excitedly with a bunch of papers fluttering about him.

"Vee must publish theze at once, ze resultz of our measurements ich be precise!" (For whatever reason the engineer in my imagination is German)

Marketing manager looks over documents.

"Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Uh-mmm, nope, and yes. We will list these but create an artificial rating that is meaningless because it will indicate these have more power than they actually do. We don't want them ACTUALLY doing some informed comparison shopping now do we? No, we just want them to look on Best Buy's website and decide to buy our product."

Engineer huffs off.

"Shizer!"

I imagine in reality that's not too far from the truth.

 

[Halon451]

No way, following is from the manual:

Amplifier section Continuous average power output of 110 watts* per channel, min., at 8 ohms, from 20 Hz to 20 000 Hz with no more than 0.09 %** total harmonic distortion. Front (stereo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 W + 110 W Power output (1 kHz, 6 Ω, 0.05 %, 1 ch driven) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 W per channel Guaranteed speaker impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Ω to 8 Ω, less than 8 Ω to 6 Ω (setting required) * Measured pursuant to the Federal Trade Commission’s Trade Regulation rule on Power Output Claims for Amplifiers ** Measured by Audio Spectrum Analyzer

So 110WX2 is for two channel stereo, 20-20,000 Hz 0.09% THD. Did you read the S&V review in the link I posted, on the VSX-52/53?

Im going to look up the actual manual for the Marantz and see if it contains similar data. I'd like to compare similar apples after all. It didn't even come with a hard copy like the Pioneer did. These days they have you look it up online.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

lol I just had a funny thought picturing an engineer in some AVR manufacturing lab rushing in excitedly with a bunch of papers fluttering about him.

"Vee must publish theze at once, ze resultz of our measurements ich be precise!" (For whatever reason the engineer in my imagination is German)

Marketing manager looks over documents.

"Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Uh-mmm, nope, and yes. We will list these but create an artificial rating that is meaningless because it will indicate these have more power than they actually do. We don't want them ACTUALLY doing some informed comparison shopping now do we? No, we just want them to look on Best Buy's website and decide to buy our product."

Engineer huffs off.

"Shizer!"

I imagine in reality that's not too far from the truth.

That's funny!

 

[PENG]

Wow, now that I'm actually looking at the right stuff.. this Yamaha RX-A2060 (equivalent features to both my current Marantz SR-6011 and the Pioneer SC-LX701, but priced equivalent to the Pioneer) seems like a true powerhouse. Obviously, having bought the Marantz I'm not totally married to the Pioneer line, I was clearly willing to try out another brand. Just kind of setting the stage here for future consideration..

This bench test was found with the 2050 (probably a slightly earlier but nearly identical model to the 2060) and it seems to absolutely wallop the other two in terms of headroom and margin to .1% THD at higher power ratings.

View attachment 20138

And compared to the Marantz:

View attachment 20139

And the equivalent Pioneer model to the one I'm looking at, the SC-95:

View attachment 20140

Pioneer VSX-52:

Note: The SR-6011 was THE only AVR on the market at that particular price point that offered 9 discrete output channels, but it is in fact a tier below the other two so it's not surprising to see its bench results showing the poorest performance. Well, presumably - these are all relative results of models as similar to the ones in question as possible until actual tests can be run on those specific models. But it should still serve as a pretty good indicator as to the difference between the three.

I added the one for the Pioneer VSX-52, you can see that the SR6006 clearly has more output and at much lower distortions. We don't have anything yet for the much newer SR6011 but it mostly will do better than the SR6006. It is also reasonable to expect the VSX-23 would do worse than the VSX-52.

All indications are that you most likely gain power with the Marantz over your old Pioneer. The SC-95 definitely is more powerful than either one, but being class D, I would like to see its output for the full 20-20,000 Hz.

 

[vsound5150]

lol I just had a funny thought picturing an engineer in some AVR manufacturing lab rushing in excitedly with a bunch of papers fluttering about him.

"Vee must publish theze at once, ze resultz of our measurements ich be precise!" (For whatever reason the engineer in my imagination is German)

Marketing manager looks over documents.

"Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Uh-mmm, nope, and yes. We will list these but create an artificial rating that is meaningless because it will indicate these have more power than they actually do. We don't want them ACTUALLY doing some informed comparison shopping now do we? No, we just want them to look on Best Buy's website and decide to buy our product."

Engineer huffs off.

"Shizer!"

I imagine in reality that's not too far from the truth.

Too funny! Makes sense now why Best Buy inflated their numbers probably mistranslation.

 

[Halon451]

I added the one for the Pioneer VSX-52, you can see that the SR6006 clearly has more output and at much lower distortions. We don't have anything yet for the much newer SR6011 but it mostly will do better than the SR6006. It is also reasonable to expect the VSX-23 would do worse than the VSX-52.

All indications are that you most likely gain power with the Marantz over your old Pioneer. The SC-95 definitely is more powerful than either one, but being class D, I would like to see its output for the full 20-20,000 Hz.

Then why the breaking apart of the sound that I'm experiencing? You're right, on paper I see what you're saying but set up, had this thing for two weeks now, have had a chance to let my ears normalize to this particular AVR, yet I'm still feeling a bit robbed on the dynamics.

I'd be willing to go one tier higher and that Yamaha I linked looks pretty impressive. Any thoughts on that?

 

[PENG]

For those who think they want amps to be designed for and/or provide all channel driven outputs, please read Gene's article on that very topic. If you are too busy, at least read the last page.

http://www.audioholics.com/audio-amplifier/the-all-channels-driven-acd-amplifier-test

Given a budget, I will take Yamaha's flag ship AVRs, (such as Yamaha's RX-A3060) that very often offers best in class two channel driven and average or below average 7 channel driven output over an AVR that boast their ACD ratings. The Yamaha will win every time for real world applications. Overall I still prefer Denon or Marantz for other reasons, Yamaha may offer more two channel power but a dB or less is hardly noticeable.

 

[PENG]

Then why the breaking apart of the sound that I'm experiencing? You're right, on paper I see what you're saying but set up, had this thing for two weeks now, have had a chance to let my ears normalize to this particular AVR, yet I'm still feeling a bit robbed on the dynamics.

I'd be willing to go one tier higher and that Yamaha I linked looks pretty impressive. Any thoughts on that?

As I said before, and it was only my educated guess, you now listen at louder SPL without realizing it. I think you will have more power than you need with any Yamaha RX-A20X0 and up for sure. You don't need an external power amp in that room sitting 9 ft from the speakers. Have you email Ed Mullen yet? Don't just listen to us, ask the pros too. I bet you will get a response within 48 hours unless he is on vacation.

 

[Halon451]

Nah I will email him but I'm collecting data points first. I just broke out my old SPL meter and actually found a 9v battery in the house to power it up. If I recall from the old days when I used to have to manually calibrate levels, fast response and C weighting correct?

Plan is to see what SPL's I actually start to notice the degradation which may prove useful info.

 

[PENG]

Nah I will email him but I'm collecting data points first. I just broke out my old SPL meter and actually found a 9v battery in the house to power it up. If I recall from the old days when I used to have to manually calibrate levels, fast response and C weighting correct?

Plan is to see what SPL's I actually start to notice the degradation which may prove useful info.

Slow C is recommended, but I prefer fast, do both.

 

[Verdinut]

@vsound5150 That's a power consumption spec for a particular rating/classification purpose, its not the max capacity of the power supply.

I tend to agree with you.
As an example, the Marantz SR6011, according to the D & M Group, is guaranteed to output at least 70% of the rated 2 channel driven, for each channel in an all channel driven condition. This means 77W x 9 = 693W but the power consumption is published at 680 Watts.
This unequivocally proves that the listed power consumption is not the maximum power drawing capacity of the power supply, but rather that of an average heavy speaker driving condition.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

C weighting is lower frequency sensitive.

 

[Halon451]

So, roughly 80-85db measured at my listening position at a good volume on an action flick. Haven't run any pink noise tests yet but I noticed something that's got me thinking along different lines.

This fouling up of the sound seems to be pretty specific to the center channel. The mains seem to be handling the content much better. Seeing as how I've already had to replace one of the mid-range drivers in one of the mains, is it possible that the center tweeter might actually be going bad? These speakers are fairly old after all and I've pushed them pretty hard for several years now.

I may try swapping out the center tweeter for one of the tweeters in the surrounds.. the benefit of having all the same set. The surrounds have taken far less punishment in comparison. I'm curious to see if that yields any improvement.

 

[Halon451]

Plus that would be consistent with the overall much better sound quality I'm getting when in 2-channel stereo, power handling aside. That center just seems flimsy and under-performing relative to the other two identical speakers.

 

[Halon451]

I even played a much more tame flick. A comedy in fact. There were scenes where one of the characters would yell or holler and very noticeable breaking up. And this was at a much more modest volume, maybe 65-70 db on the SPL meter.