First I want to say what a well written article on Honest Power Ratings. I old enough to prefer and remember the power ratings from 1974. I saw a while back a 2000W car amp had a JIEC rating of only 40 Watts per channel RMS into the rated load. Note true laboratory or professional amplifiers have to produce maximum power into clipping continuously without blowing up. As long as a home amplifier can deliver its rated power into 8 ohms stereo at less than 0.1% distortion RMS, I'm happy. I'm OK with surround amps only meeting the stereo rating, because in surround mode, they spend most of the time at 1 watt and below. Its the dynamic headroom that matters (for movies). The high end amps in the early 80s rated headroom in db to point out that rated power was not at clipping. The argument some made as to why high power transistor amps sounded cleaner than tube amps (of lower power). Class D does make the amplifier more efficient, but the transformers in the new receivers you will note are much smaller than the stereo amps of the early 80s when the FTC still prevailed. After Reagan started the deregulating of big government, 1000 watt IPP computer speakers with only 5 watt wall adapters started to arrive from places like China. Maybe the JIEC will help bring the truth back. As the cost of switching power supplies comes down, you won't be able to see how big the power transformer any more. You can't hear the 100KHz switching noise in audio, just as you also can't hear the quantization noise on CDs. I prefer switching supplies, even though some want the big reserve of the old computer grad filter caps for low frequencies. Anyway if it is a Class D amp why would you be concerned. Also class D and subwoofers were made for one another. A perfect match. Off topic will stop now.
