Importance of Power Supply/Consumption

[stevez]

I am about to upgrade from a Marantz SR82 Prologic receiver (still sounds good after all these years).

I have narrowed my search to 3 receivers within my budget. They are:

Denon 2105
Yamaha RX-V750
Marantz SR-5500

They all have similar features, but there are a few minor differences between them. I like to listen to a lot of music and watching movies/music DVDs, so the sound quality is important. I know they will all give good sound for the money. I also considered an Onkyo TXSR-602, but it was lacking a couple of things I wanted.

That's the background, so now to my question/s....

I've been trying to find power supply/consumption specs on all of these AVs and can't seem to find them for the Marantz and Yammie. The Onkyo (which I dismissed) uses 650W and the Denon uses 630W. What I am not sure about, is how this statistic affects the sound quality and the "headroom" at higher volume levels. Also, if power consumption for a given AV in its budget class is only, say 450W, does this mean that its power supply is more efficient in its use of power, or does it mean that it is just smaller and less robust? So would a power supply using 650W in an AV in the same budget class be able to supply more RMS power to all of its channels? Or does it just mean this is a less efficient supply and more costly to operate? How much importance should be attached to this when deciding between similar featured machines?

 

[Mudcat]

First of all the Yamaha RX-V750 consumes 500 watts. You can find this info on their website and downloading a manual. You can probably do the same for the Marantz.

Second, I would not put to much weight to the power consumption figure. Others will disagree. Compare the power ratio (RMS watts per channel times 2 channels vs Consumed watts), consumed better be higher. Some manufacturers are conservative in their power estimates, some are pissing into the wind. And you usually do not need a lot of watts to reach painful levels. So buy the one you like best.

 

[stevez]

Thanks for your quick reply.....

I'll keep those power calcs in mind when I make my final decision. Previously tried looking at the Marantz website. It would have to be one of the worst maintained sites I've looked at. Links that don't work, old products shown as "new", missing full spec information, etc. They might make good products, but their marketing leaves me cold. This abyssmal approach can lose sales for a company.