Does anyone know how much Watts the Liquid Spark Amp uses? I am worried about my electric bill

[john5220]

I know this sounds silly, however this amp is rather hot like similar to a heat sink the back of it says 1.25A @ 36V

So this means it uses like 45 watts all the time? even when nothing is playing its rather hot, the aluminum itself is about 45 degrees C when I touch it.

This thing pushes out a LOT of heat and I am not sure why. Like it can literally feel like a CPU heatsink under moderate load, something seems wrong here. But it works fine....

 

[restorer-john]

Buy a killawatt or equivalent. Set your tariff and see what it costs you to run. Make a decision whether it's acceptable to you or not. Simple.

 

[RayDunzl]

killawatt

Kill-A-Watt

http://www.p3international.com/products/p4460.html

Or the slightly more inexpensive

http://www.p3international.com/products/p4400.html

 

[john5220]

Nah I can't afford that, it says 1.25 Amp and 100 to 200 volt Input and 1.25 Amp with 36V output.

I think this thing is consuming a crazy amount of wattage but I could be paranoid. Can't anyone here calculate it? this is a science website after all

I also notice if I turn it off a while then I turn it back on it will take a few seconds for the amp to actually work the light will be red then it will turn white and you will hear a click

 

[RayDunzl]

So this means it uses like 45 watts all the time?

Probably not.

Can't anyone here calculate it? this is a science website after all

No.

We'd need to know the volts and current - a measurement - with which to work the equation.

The mark is more like "maximum" useage, not necessarily the same as typical use.

Consider the heat given off by an old 45 watt incandescant light bulb...

45 degrees C is nowhere near that.

 

[restorer-john]

Nah I can't afford that, it says 1.25 Amp and 100 to 200 volt Input and 1.25 Amp with 36V output.

I think this thing is consuming a crazy amount of wattage but I could be paranoid. Can't anyone here calculate it? this is a science website after all

The numbers on the adapter or the specs mean nothing in terms of what it is actually consuming. You need to measure what the device is pulling and the power factor. A Kill-A-Watt does that for you. There's plenty of cheaper units that do exactly the same job.

Don't be a cheapskate, just buy one.

 

[john5220]

Anyone knows why when I turn it on after its off a while the light is red then a few seconds it turns white and then you can hear? almost like its a tube amp but its not? is this thing broken?

 

[MediumRare]

John, if it's using 45w (which it is not) and a kilowatt hour costs you $0.15, then it costs 45/1000*$0.15 = $0.007 per hour to run. So go wild, dude!

 

[MediumRare]

Anyone knows why when I turn it on after its off a while the light is red then a few seconds it turns white and then you can hear? almost like its a tube amp but its not? is this thing broken?

Protection circuit so you don't send a click to your headphones.

 

[Soniclife]

Don't be a cheapskate, just buy one.

Seconded. The cheap ones are really cheap, and very illuminating when used on devices around the house. I was shocked what my old Naim system used in standby.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Anyone knows why when I turn it on after its off a while the light is red then a few seconds it turns white and then you can hear? almost like its a tube amp but its not? is this thing broken?

not broken. that's the way it works. Pretty sure it's mentioned in the manual.

 

[Willem]

I would be surprised if a solid state headphone amp would be very power hungry.
However this is not to say it is not worth investigating power consumption of such things. For the last few years our annual power consumption has been about 6000 kilowatt. That is a lot by Dutch standards so I have started to adress this for both financial and ecological reasons. The first step was to install solar panels. These produce about 4500 kilowatt so there is still a 1500 kilowatt shortfall.
Having replaced most lights with leds I noticed the consumption of our Samsung set top box. It gets so hot that it needs a fan even in standby and that is not surprising given its 75 watt standby consumption. This was really unacceptable. A new set top box saves about 60 watt or about 500 kilowatt a year. That represents a third of our original annual shortfall and some 8% of our annual electricity consumption, and at our electricity prices about 100 euro a year. The new box is not suddenly going to make me rich but it was worth it for my wallet and for the environment. Not to mention the fan noise.

 

[solderdude]

You cannot dissipate 45W on a PCB of this size and only increase the temperature 25oC so the power consumption will be much less.
I expect it to be below 10W in any case, perhaps even below 5W.
The output stage is most likely running somewhat in class-A. I would not be surprised if the amp would be full or mostly class-A for 300 Ohm headphones.

 

[Soniclife]

I noticed the consumption of our Samsung set top box. It gets so hot that it needs a fan even in standby and that is not surprising given its 75 watt standby consumption.

Wow that's high for what I assume is relatively modern unit. One of the advantages of having a power tester is to find out just this sort of thing. My Samsung Blu-ray player has 2 sleep modes, the deepest of these uses almost zero, the other saves absolutely nothing compared to being fully on.

 

[Willem]

Samsung Horizon (at least that is on the box). There was a power saving mode that was not very frugal but most of all the unit would not wake up consistently.
Anyway, this was what the cable company provided. The new unit is much better other than that the cable company (Ziggo) has used the occasion to lower the data rate so the image is far more compresssed and pretty ugly. Lip synchronisation was also completely off but is improving. Their website is flowing over with complaints but they say nearly all their customers are happy. But that is a different story.

 

[john5220]

You cannot dissipate 45W on a PCB of this size and only increase the temperature 25oC so the power consumption will be much less.
I expect it to be below 10W in any case, perhaps even below 5W.
The output stage is most likely running somewhat in class-A. I would not be surprised if the amp would be full or mostly class-A for 300 Ohm headphones.

ooh nice thanks lol I feels much safer now

 

[RayDunzl]

For the last few years our annual power consumption has been about 6000 kilowatt.

18229kwh/yr since March of 2014 here in hot humid Florida...

2600sq ft /241.5 sq m house, detached single story, no shade.

Estimated base usage (blue) and HVAC usage (red) since June of 2016. Total shows daily usage for the (approximately) weekly intervals.

Two recent July 4 weeks show nobody home for most of the time.

 

[Willem]

Wow that is a lot. Our detached house is almost as large (but two storeys). Average annual electricity consumption in the Netherlands is about 3000 KWh per household, but we don't really have/need domestic airconditioners until now. Heating is from natural gas, on average about 2000 cubic metres. Both domestic electricity and gas consumption have declined by a few percent each year thanks to more efficient equipment and better mandatory home insulation in more recently built houses. An interesting anecdote is our new vacuum cleaner. The old one was a 1200 watt one from a very well respected manufacturer. The new one meets the recent EU electricity consumption limit of 600 watt for vacuum cleaners, is much lighter to lift, very much quieter, and actually cleans better (it was also rather cheaper). Similarly, I recently looked up the electricity consumption of modern refrigerators. Modern ones in the same size consume about a third of what our current fifteen year old one does. So there is clear technological improvement, both from market forces (low energy consumption sells) as from regulation.

 

[ernestcarl]

Energy consumption in North America is quite high in comparison to everywhere else in the world. I've just about replaced all of our bulbs with LEDs but kept a few halogen lamps for lights around the audio system area -- zero flickering when dimmed very low -- flickering was driving me crazy.

I've noticed a lot of modern routers now (more powerful) even have fans to dissipate heat. I find ours to be noisy as hell at night. Can't believe they consume so much power.

I used to maintain a "master list" of just about every electrical device in our house and the peak/average power consumption for each. Something like the following could be very useful:

Kill-a-watt

Energy monitoring smart plug switch

*Oh yes, christmas holiday season means... gazillion christmas lights everywhere -- including our house. Have to keep up with the Joneses.

 

[RayDunzl]

Wow that is a lot. Our detached house is almost as large (but two storeys). Average annual electricity consumption in the Netherlands is about 3000 KWh per household, but we don't really have/need domestic airconditioners until now. Heating is from natural gas, on average about 2000 cubic metres.

Hmm...

Maybe not so much...

So... 23,699kwh equivalent to my 18,230kwh.