what exactly is watts per channel?

Question

I have a pair of old speakers that are huge but the reciever only puts out 50w per channel. I also have much newer speakers that has a reciever that puts out 200w per channel but the old system is much louder how is this?

Answer 1

Well, old speakers (say from the 70-80's) are
often quite efficient and don't need as much
power to get as loud or louder than many newer
speakers on the market today.


If you can compare your old speakers with your
new ones, compare their sensitivity rating. It
could make a major difference in loudness from
the power it's receiving. For example, if your old
speakers are rated at 93 dB (@ 1w/1m) and your
new speakers are only rated at say 85 dB, 200
watts will not get as loud as a 93 dB speaker with
only a mere 50 watts.


As a rule of thumb, for each 3 dB of SPL increase,
you will have to double the power of the amp driving
the respective loudspeakers...


Sound Pressure Level Comparison Between
Low and High Efficiency Speakers @ 1 Meter

1 watt = 85 dB -------------- 93 dB
2 watts = 88 dB ------------ 96 dB
4 watts = 91 dB ------------ 99 dB
8 watts = 94 dB ------------ 102 dB
16 watts = 97 dB ---------- 105 dB
32 watts = 100 dB -------- 108 dB
50 watts ~ 101.5 dB ------ 109.5 dB
64 watts = 103 dB --------- 111 dB
128 watts = 106 dB ------- 114 dB
200 watts ~ 108 dB ------- 116 dB
256 watts = 109 dB ------- 117 dB
512 watts = 112 dB ------- 120 dB

I hope this puts things into perspective for you.

Answer 2

Watts Per Channel

Answer 3

You question is really two fold.
A watt is a watt no matter what it is hooked up to, so if a receiver is made to output at say fifty watts per channel that is what it is made to produce without going into total distortion or power failure. And if another receiver is made at 200 watts per channel that is what it will produce without going into total distortion or power failure. If you would hook up not different speakers but the same speaker to both , I would bet that the 200 watt per channel receiver would sound a little louder than the fifty watt receiver.
The difference is not in the receivers but in the efficiency of the speakers themselves.
Usually when you buy good quality speakers they will give you different a rating for efficiency rated in (db per 1 watt),
therefore one speaker rated at 85 db per 1 watt will not sound as loud as a speaker rated at 90 db per 1 watt. Therefore it is not totally how much power a receiver can produce but also how much power it would take to produce say 95 db.
That's why a receiver with less watts but a more efficient speaker would sound louder than a more powerful receiver with a less efficient speaker.

Answer 4

Hi. All power amplifiers have a power rating.The units of power are called watts.The power rating of an amplifier is different for various load impedances.The units for load impedance are called ohms.The most common impedance is 8 ohms.Ideally,an amplifier should be a constant voltage source.That is,for a given input signal,the amplifier should produce a constant voltage across the speaker terminals whatever the load.For example,if the amplifier is producing 20 volts at the output terminals there are 50 watts being fed into an 8 ohm speaker (watts equals voltage sguared divided by impedance 20volts x 20volts = 400volts divided by 8 ohms =50 watts )
Therefore the amplifier is rated at 50 watts per channel into 8 ohms.

The old speakers are probably more efficient meaning they do not need as much power to drive them louder than your new ones.(All speakers waste power from the amplifier converting electrical energy into acoustical energy -the more efficient the speaker the less energy lost converting the signal to sound.)

Answer 5

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You're not going to find a dedicated 4-ch power amp for $120. It's just not a realistic budget. Even the cheapest Chinese brands don't do that. Sorry. Alternatives: Well, there's the little TriPath digital amps. They're cheap but have issues with power delivery where bass is concerned. It takes real current to drive bass frequencies in music, and the bottleneck with these little amps is that all the power comes from a small wallwart transformer so there's no current reserve. You'll also notice that their quoted power figures are often listed at 4 Ohms and withoiut reference to distortion. Measuring at 4 Ohms boosts the paper power figure. Omitting distortion means that the amp was maxed out (sounding horrible) so the resulting power figure is very optimistic. You could even say it's downright misleading. You might be lucky and pick up an ex-band/ex-DJ/ex-PA 4 channel power amp. I got hold of a Samson 4 channel amp second-hand for your sort of budget. Then there's the crafty route.... ;-) Old AV amps don't fetch a lot now that HDMI is here. Some of those old amps have multichannel inputs. That is you can drive them with a 4 or 5 channel input and use them like a power amp with volume control. I did exactly this when I had my main 5 channel power amp serviced. I picked up an old Harman Kardon AVR65 for around the equivalent of $60 and connected it in place of my Rotel 5 channel power amp. It worked like a charm. Not every AV amp has a 5.1/7.1 input, so just as I did you'll have to do a little homework when you come across something. But the net is full of reviews and the manufacturers have manuals to download so it's not difficult to get the right answers. My AVR 65 is rated at 5x 65W/ch in to 8 Ohms. As long as you aren't driving 4 Ohm PA speakers then something like this may work for you too.

Answer 6

Each of your speakers uses one channel of amplification. A two channel (stereo) amplifier is actually two single channel amplifiers on a single chassis.

In a home theater system, you can have 5, 6, or 7 channels of amplification. The watts per channel is the amount of power available to each of the speakers connected to the amplifier or receiver.

Answer 7

RE:
what exactly is watts per channel?

Answer 8

Nothing available in that price range your cheapest alternative would be to get a closeout, used or refurbished AV receiver by Onkyo that has that much power; into 4 channels I have seen them for as little as $99 to $150 check out accessories for less for closeout products...Nuvo has an amp like that but it sells for $475 new....

Answer 9

Thank you, Mr. Wolf. You specifically addressed what I was pondering regarding the definition/nature of a, "channel."