It is so easy to run in 2.1 that a lot of people bounce back and forth. Me included! But in doing so, the multi-channel always sounds much better. Plus multi-channel covers up a lot of room sins too. Not perfect of course but can really help in hard to set up rooms.
-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
FTC Power Amplifier Rule
- Thread starter Dennis Murphy
- Start date
What is a pre-pros?
The worldwide AVR Market Size Worth $2.61Bn. That is more than half a million units sold every year. Someone is using them.
I’m surprised with the lack of spatial audio. My dealer have installed 20+ HTs during the lockdown, all with spatial audio. There are at least ten such companies in our area, which has a population of less than a million. Go towards London, there are 100+ companies for a population of 10+ million. Those companies nominate hundreds of entries of their HT installations, again almost all with spatial audio, every year.
MakeMineVinyl
Major Contributor
The ATI NC500 series amps from ATI I believe can be had in 3 and 5 channel versions up to 500 watts. The amps also come in 500 watt monoblocks, and I think high power/low power configurations are made. They don't make a 9 channel in that series, but I think they do make a 9 and 11 channel in another model series. These were made specifically for Atmos.That was EXACTLY what we were telling them. Class D all the way with say 150 at 4ohms for L/C/R all driven at once and the surrounds all had to do 70% of the 150 at 4 ohms to pass. This means class D and if they wanted split the power supplies from everything else in a two box configuration that would be fine. This also means the pre box could increase its measurable (by Amir) performance and bring surround sound up A LOT in the tests. Of course the amp is then just a 7 or 9 channel amp. Very easy, yet none of the majors are willing to go there. They refuse to do what I want done. Can you believe that??
An audio-video pre-processor. Sometimes called a processor. Sometimes called an AV pre-amp, like this one:
AV7706 AV Pre-Amplifier - 11.2 Ch. 8K with 3D Audio & HEOS® | Marantz™
The Marantz™ AV7706 11.2 channel 8k Ultra HD AV Surround Pre-Amplifier features 8k HDMI passthrough, built-in HEOS®, voice control, and more.
Correct. The number after the dot shows the number of spatial channels/speakers. You said 5.1 and 5.2. That means no spatial channels.
AVP is another term used for a pre-pro. AVR refers to a receiver, which contains amplifiers. At least in the US.
I edited the post to delete the reference to 5.x.x. In my haste I misinterpreted what the numbers meant, so my remark made no sense.
I deleted my post too.
I removed my comments on AVR.Except that lots of content, including old movies and not just music, are in stereo. Test protocols should follow use cases—here are the specs for stereo listening, here they are for 7.2 surround sound, here they are for 11.2 Atmos, or whatever. (My thinking only goes up to 7.2.)
If receiver manufacturers sized their amps and power supplies appropriately to content use cases, surround channels would have and be happy with a lower rating.
Rick “requirements derive from use cases; tests and specifications should derive from requirements” Denney
Last edited:
Just sample the top 50 streaming and cinema releases and see the results.
Surround audio has became a cinema standard 30 years ago, Atmos is almost a decade old. Standards are released for the current environment. You don’t release a standard to satisfy half a century old materials!
I’ll say this again: not everyone streams. High-speed Internet infrastructure will have to be a lot more comprehensive than it is now to assert otherwise.
Also: People I know own (stereo) CDs and play them, usually in their HT systems.
Rick “who owns lots of DVDs with 5.1 surround encoding” Denney
Time to go out and see the world.
Other than Africa and Americas the world has gigabit Internet and streaming is the major means to watch films.
The world is what it is.
Do you think South Asia has gigabit outside of the biggest cities? Rural China? Rural Australia? Maybe Europeans and big-city Americans are the ones who need to go out and see the world.
But even my friends who have good Internet also have CD and DVD libraries. And lots of stereo content is still being made and sold.
As for me, I have a system built for music. It is stereo, though I may add subwoofers at some point. I have literally zero multichannel content that I would play on that system. I also have a home theater system that my wife occasionally uses for CDs, but mostly it’s for watching TV (DirecTV—the only option where we live except for the OTA antenna). We also have a DVD library, so most movies for us are on premium movie channels or the shelf. Most content is 5.1 at most.
I’d bet that people in the wider world who really need accurate manufacturer specs are not the ones chasing the most channels.
Rick “use cases, not just SOTA” Denney
It is always surprising how America comes late to the high tech stuff other countries have at least 5 years before we do. The chip credit cards I believe was a 10 year lag. Lots of other areas where we lag. In the really big picture I guess it doesn't matter but America has really fallen off of its world beating/leading perch from 20 years ago. Except for SpaceX and military equipment. We still lead in most, but not all military areas. In infrastructure we are way behind. But Americans like blowing things up more than building them. I'm guilty of that too.
mhardy6647
Grand Contributor
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2019
- Messages
- 12,205
- Likes
- 26,713
One of the old jokes vis-a-vis some of the overly optimistic "ratings systems" would describe those as 15,000 watts ILS (If Lightning Strikes).
So... I mean, maybe it's just me... but the difference between 30 and 50 watts is 2.2 dB, and from 13 to 30 watts is 3.6 dB. Your concept of huge is rather different to mine.
Some of the best movies ever made are in glorious mono. Some of those started as optical soundtracks, too.
Last edited:
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
It's is indeed 2.2dBW and 3.6dBW. The difference of course is the voltage, running into the rails and clipping where the issues arise. This is what is ignored when simply eyeballing the 'knee' on a THD vs level plot and declaring a number which is based on a total THD that varies from one product to another...
Consistent, repeatable, accurate determination of power output and rated specifications is vital. So far with amplification, ASR is not providing a useful power output determination. With most other parameters, it's pretty good however. I sure hope the FTC either leaves the rule well alone, or makes a minor tweak in terms of advertised outputs for multichannel gear.
That little SMSL actually has what appears to be nice clipping behaviour.
Colonel7
Addicted to Fun and Learning
I'm thinking they'll assume no pre-outs are used for multichannel. All amps in the box are used...at least I hope so.
However, they could come up with something wonky like no more than 5 or LCR 3 amps driven only.
AVR = audio/video receiver = audio preamp, video decoder (to strip audio) and switcher, amplifiers
AVP = audio/video processor = audio preamp, video decoder and switcher, no amplifiers
Pre-pro = preamp-processor == AVP
HTH - Don
AVP = audio/video processor = audio preamp, video decoder and switcher, no amplifiers
Pre-pro = preamp-processor == AVP
HTH - Don
In my opinion, the FTC rule should be extended globally and lobbied in order to adopt an international standard where both average continous power and transient power should be clearly stated.
This will enable high quality amplifiers with good transient power (headroom) to stand out from the crowd.
This will enable high quality amplifiers with good transient power (headroom) to stand out from the crowd.
Last edited:
It seems to me that the FTC is catering to the manufacturers. They started out three years ago thinking it would be a fairly easy update to the regulations. I believe they then received real, informed information from many in the audio field that wanted a very consumer friendly requirement to advance the regs to current technology. I believe they then realized they were kicking a hornets nest and now are going for round two with very meager goals. If they did follow the recommendations they received last time it would have been a nice jump in making units easy to compare to each other. At least in power specs and distortion. I am hoping for the best but since they are redoing the entire comment period with reduced goals, I am not expecting much.
Similar threads
