Should There be Energy Efficiency Rules for Amplifiers?

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Sure, but audio amplifiers are way down the list of major energy consumers. How many people do you know who even owns an amplifier. I know 2. Now compare that to how many own a TV or water heater or whatever.

 

[fpitas]

Sure, but audio amplifiers are way down the list of major energy consumers. How many people do you know who even owns an amplifier. I know 2. Now compare that to how many own a TV or water heater or whatever.

Yes, we could spend a lot of time and trouble for very little return. And frankly for almost all uses, class D is coming in the near future for economic reasons.

 

[DVDdoug]

No!

If I'm playing for the electricity I should be able to use it as I choose. I suppose it's "OK" if the government wants to ration my electricity (although I wouldn't be happy about it) but I should be able to decide if I want to toast my bread or listen to my stereo.

And an inefficient amplifier uses less power than a refrigerator or ANY major appliance.

Or maybe you have solar power for my class-A amplifier.

 

[tomtoo]

We could label them?

 

[Ron Texas]

Do you like living in a nanny state where the government regulates every aspect of your life? There is a saying in Australia to describe that particular philosophy - "if it's not banned, it's compulsory!". There is a certain economic cost that comes with reducing freedoms, over-regulation, and increasing red tape (and therefore increasing armies of bureaucrats). And it's not as if every household in the USA has a massive 300W Class A amp wasting 95% of its energy as heat. People who use such amps are very few in number. Do you think it is a good idea to introduce new legislation to ban a fringe activity with minimal harm to the environment? How much carbon do you think you will abate by doing this, compared to creating even more useless bureaucratic jobs to enforce the ban?

That's how I feel about it. It's pretty much what the US intends to do with gas cooktops because only the high end ones will fail the new standard and not that many people have them. You may note that many forum members are very green. So far nobody, including me supports regulating power amps. However, the absence of the greens in this discussion tells me if it's something near and dear to them, the cry is hands off.

 

[fpitas]

That's how I feel about it. It's pretty much what the US intends to do with gas cooktops because only the high end ones will fail the new standard and not that many people have them. You may note that many forum members are very green. So far nobody, including me supports regulating power amps. However, the absence of the greens in this discussion tells me if it's something near and dear to them, the cry is hands off.

Unfair. If every other house had a power amp, the situation would be very different. And much better for us

 

[Ron Texas]

Unfair. If every other house had a power amp, the situation would be very different. And much better for us

If every other house had a power amp we would be living in a world of noise complaints and people who are hard of hearing, LOL.

 

[fpitas]

If every other house had a power amp we would be living in a world of noise complaints and people who are hard of hearing, LOL.

Sure, but we wouldn't get the blank stares. "People still do that? My Bose cubes are everything I need!"

 

[Zapper]

Sure, but we wouldn't get the blank stares. "People still do that? My Bose cubes are everything I need!"

Blank stare. What's a Bose cube?

Joking. But Bose doesn't make cubes anymore. Their website shows smart speakers, portable bluetooth speakers, and soundbars.

 

[fpitas]

Blank stare. What's a Bose cube?

Joking. But Bose doesn't make cubes anymore. Their website shows smart speakers, portable bluetooth speakers, and soundbars.

All fine choices for someone else.

 

[Ron Texas]

Sure, but we wouldn't get the blank stares. "People still do that? My Bose cubes are everything I need!"

I know someone who has those. He likes classical and built his music collection by ripping CD's from the public library. Also, he keeps about 200 bottles of wine at the proper temperature in his house. I feel so deprived because all I have room for is 72 bottles, lol.

 

[kemmler3D]

This is an inherently political thread so pretty spicy for this forum, but I'll bite.

Let's start with the assumption that we're in favor of banning something if doing so has a significant positive effect on the environment. You might not think this way, but for the sake of argument let's assume that.

First of all, we're saying "almost nobody owns an amplifier", which is not true. Almost everyone DOES own an amplifier, it's just usually integrated with something else, like a Sonos, TV, boombox, bluetooth speaker, etc. I think most of those are Class D already, so we can ignore them.

Almost nobody owns a large class A or A/B discrete amplifier, this is true. And that's really the only type of amp that would be worth regulating.

So we're talking maybe 100M of these in existence and in use worldwide, being very generous. At an average wattage of 100 (also probably generous) we're looking at (assuming they're mostly class A/B) something like 30w idle consumption on average. If they are all turned on 24/7 this adds up to 26.2TWh per year for all 100M A/B amps. This would actually be roughly 1/1000 of total electricity consumption worldwide, so I think this is clearly an overestimate, but it's not completely out of the question for regulation at the consumer level.

If we assume the amps are only on for 2 hours per day on average (more realistic IMO) we're at about 1.3TWh per year, still a lot. If you convert all of those to Class D you could probably save 80% of that value, getting it down to just 260GWh per year. This is still a lot by human standards, but not a lot by global standards - about the output of 1/10 of one coal plant.

So if we outlaw Class A/B and Class A entirely, we can maybe almost take most of one coal plant off the grid. It's something, but there are probably much easier and less obtrusive ways to make a bigger impact.

 

[Ron Texas]

This is an inherently political thread so pretty spicy for this forum, but I'll bite.

Maybe I'm poking fun at the EV thread. If you think this is political go there, look, and complain to management. You may observe that the most ardent supporters of EV's don't believe there is anything political about it and it's all driven by science.

 

[kemmler3D]

Maybe I'm poking fun at the EV thread. If you think this is political go there, look, and complain to management. You may observe that the most ardent supporters of EV's don't believe there is anything political about it and it's all driven by science.

I come to ASR to get away from politics... just saying.

But if you want to make it political, sure, EVs aren't as bad for GHG as ICE cars, plus the scale of impact is massive, so we should probably ban ICE cars as soon as possible.

 

[Ron Texas]

I come to ASR to get away from politics... just saying.

But if you want to make it political, sure, EVs aren't as bad for GHG as ICE cars, plus the scale of impact is massive, so we should probably ban ICE cars as soon as possible.

I didn't want make it political and I'm no fan of EV's.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I'm against such a ban. If it came to pass, only after a ban on crypto-currency. I'm pretty sure all the audio amplifiers in the world don't use the juice that crypto-mining does.

Oh, and mandating all cooking be done in the most energy efficient manner which is probably microwave ovens. No toaster ovens, no toasters, no baking/broiling ovens, no gas or electric cooktops, just microwave, geothermal or solar cooking only. No hickory cooked BBQ, nothing like that. I guess cooking via the engine bay of ICE vehicles would be allowed since it is waste heat anyway. Maybe some heat-pump based system could rescue some of these cooking methods to be as efficient as microwaving.

 

[Willem]

I think this is a fun thread because on aggregate amps do indeed consume little. I am puzzled that some seem tobeantvto cling to gas cooking. As I wrote, both research and my subjective observations suggest that there is a real health benefit and no downside.

 

[mhardy6647]

A 20 dB increase in loudspeaker sensitivity would reduce the amount of amplifier output power required by 100 fold.
Just sayin'.

 

[Blumlein 88]

A 20 dB increase in loudspeaker sensitivity would reduce the amount of amplifier output power required by 100 fold.
Just sayin'.

Sorry energy efficient music transducers would be earphones. If I have to choose between phones, speakers and the planet catching fire, well let it burn.

 

[mhardy6647]

Depends on the headphones' impedance, though... and sensitivity.