power consumption

Sometimes power consumption is provided in the specs, sometimes not. If not, check with the manufacturer. I suppose it could be difficult to get from huge companies like Sony or Pioneer, but small high-end companies should be happy to provided it. Good Luck. Craig

The rating plate or handbook for each item of your equipment should give you a figure for maximum power consumption in watts. Take this figure and divide it by 1000 and this will give you the KilowattHour consumption for that item. Multiply it by the time (in whole hours or fraction of) each item of equipment is switched on for and this will give you the total consumption. Depending upon what unit of measurement your electric utility bills you in you can work out the cost of your electricity for each item. For example, if your utility bills you in "units" (where 1 unit equals 1,000 watts used in 1 hour) then say an amplifier that consumes at full rating 400 watts and is operated for 3 hours would use 400 x 3 = 1.2 KwH or 1.2 "units" of electricity. Another example: if an amp uses 1200 watts then in one hour it would use 1.2 KwH or 1.2 "units". In BTU's 1KwH (or 1 unit) equals 3,410 BTU's. Hope none of this has confused you even more...? Hope it helps, regards, Richard

Thanks Richard and Craig. To follow up, Yes I did understand everything Richard.
Now, for the better worded and more to the point question.

Does the system use more watts when it is off as opposed to actually playing and how can I find out the energy consumption when it is simply on and warm as opposed to playing and hot?

Thanks, jd

Pull the outlet out of the wall. With all your stuff on standby clamp a amp meter around the hot. This will give you your load in amperes. amps x volts = watts or amps x 120(volts)= consumed power. Richards post will do the rest. Then turn it all on crank it up and see what you've got. I'll guess twice as much power consumed. You know I own an amp meter maybe I should run a test and report the findings.

Whether the amp uses more power when playing or idling is dependent on the technology of the amp. A typical "Class A" (not to be confused with a Stereophile "A" rated) amp will use as much power idling as playing at low to medium volumes. If the amp has a standby switch, the standby mode should reduce power consumption to a very small amount. If the amp has an on/off switch, that should reduce the power consumption to nothing. If this info isn't in the manual or on the back of the unit, you'll have to get it from the mfgr, or measure it as mentioned above. To throw in a little more technicality, you'd have to use a Watt meter to get the most accurate measurement (due to phase angle), but measuring the current (amps) will get you in the ballpark.