Are you honestly getting the power you pay for in a stereo these days?
Probably not. For instance take a look at any of your local retailers, like "Wally World," Sears, ect.
An "average Joe" is literally flooded with the choices, and surround sound seems to be a leader in being the replacement for a good, powerful way to enjoy your music.
But if you compare some of these systems with say - the older stereos (from about 1974-1984), there is a BIG difference in features and power. That being said, you can still get the super power and audio quality, if you have a stack of cash to shell out. But I "m talking about the
people that want the affordability, without having to sacrifice power and sound quality.
As far as wattage is concerned, I have seen what I would call - some pretty bold and outrageous claims. I have seen boom boxes with giant labels on them claiming to put out anywhere from 50 to 400 watts! Yeah RIGHT! (For only $150). I don"t think so.
If the power output were to even get close to that, the sound would most likely be pretty bad. Here's why:
If you're old enough to remember having that first car where the stereo was more important than anything else, you could find these "big watts" stamped on everything from amps, equalizers, and even just a plain AM/FM cassette deck. It was how the watts were calculated that allowed some of these devices to get away with this. For example,
you might see a really nice LOOKING stereo advertised at 100 watts per channel, yet when you turn it up you can easily carry on a conversation over the music, and the song you are listening to probably starts sounding like garbage because it's so distorted.
That 100 watt rating was a PEAK rating. The way they get away with selling you 100 watts (I call these fake watts), is when an amp or stereo is placed on the test bench, it gets hooked up to a machine (oscilloscope) that measures its output. If the amp or stereo even hits 100 watts one time - for even a split second (sometimes to the point of going up in smoke), it can legally be sold as a 100 watt amp/stereo based on the fact that it did actually peak at 100 watts. Even if it blew up and never played again.
The fact is that the circuitry used in some of these stereos just can't produce the power accurately. I would use this comparison: If I sold you a box to carry stuff in, and I boasted that it could carry 100 pounds but the bottom fell out a few seconds after you put your stuff in it, it did in fact hold 100 pounds - just not for very long. The box was made with poor quality materials.
The watts you want to buy are called RMS rated. RMS is short for root means square(d). Without going super geek on you it basically means (in laymans terms) that if you buy the same amp/stereo at 100 watts RMS, that's only 70.7% of what the amp/stereo should be able to put out. That means 100 watts without blowing up. This is why some of the older stereos/amps appear to sound more powerful than some of the new stuff. For instance, I have a Pioneer SX-980 ( from around 1980-81?) that is able to rock the house at a modest 30 to 40 watts per channel, AND it serves as both a surround sound, and computer amp.
Yes it's old, but the point is it was rated on a little more honest scale, and if you were to look inside you would find some substantially higher quality parts than in some of today's amp/stereos.
As far as features, if you look in the back you have a place to hook up quite a bit of stuff without having to buy mixers and so forth. If you look at the back of many of today's amp/stereos, you're lucky to have a spot to plug in more than just a few things without having to buy more adapters.
I have found this older unit also sounds great when playing songs straight from the computer. I'm sure there are several ways to do this, I use a device called Hi-Fi Link. Hope this is useful the next time you're shopping for stereo stuff. (As for speakers I use 4 original Mach 1's).
