FTC may end amplifier rule! ACTION NEEDED

Please read the Stereophile article on the issue which is less sensational. AFAIK, they are not doing away with measurements altogether, just the preconditioning requirement which has caused amp makers to overbuild and overspend on heat sinks with little practical value. It also unfairly stigmatizes Class A in favor of Class D.
Kind of curious that I’ve been looking at one specific case of this. The Luxman 590axII integrated amplifier is a great example. Luxman has to list it as a 30W/ch amp due entirely to the preconditioning rule, otherwise it would be a solid 100 Watts.

In order to meet the FTC specs for 100 Watts they would have to build a chassis twice the size with proportionately larger heat sinks.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/ftc-proposes-eliminating-its-amplifier-rule
Personally, I'd love to see amps get lighter and cheaper from all makers. :)

I have an idea, why doesn't the IEEE or UL write up a voluntary standard and let manufactures voluntarily agree or not agree to advertise their compliance.   

Russ. I think we both can agree on this. There's something special about heavy amp. You bitch and complain as you get it into place but a part of you knows it's the real deal. I love 5 channel amps with two toroids. I auditioned the NAD c298 and it was sp clean and pristine. Class D purifi tech at 180 wpc. It was ultimately too neutral for my liking but I'm sure most would love it. 

@eric_squires yes. This is a fair question and I'm not trying to stir any pots... but do you think the future is well made class D amps? I feel like class AB has hit its peak and class A can't get any better. That leaves room for improvement in class D and H. 

Less government the better.

I have never purchased any piece of equipment or a machine based on a spec sheet.

actually, i find the FTC requirements arbitrary. Music is not a 100% duty cycle into an 8 ohm resistive load. Having short term current and power capability is far more important than being able to, say drive a 75 watt signal into an 8 ohm resistor for an hour.

Well recorded music has a peak:average ratio of over ten. This means that, to avoid clipping, an amplifier ought to put out less than 10% of its maximum voltage swing on average. OTOH it is VERY useful for it to have the ability to drive nearly zero load momentarily, given the very reactive properties of most cone speakers (with the voice coil flying in the reverse direction its theoretically possible to be negative in fact).
The simplistic requirement is a bane, IMO. I realize it is nearly impossible to make anything simple meaningful, but this really does not bother me one bit. Not one’s allowing them to lie, simply to stop measuring "20-20k, both channels driven, for an hour, into a 8 ohm resistive load". Of course, I’m one of those misleading designers intent on selling you something that sounds good, but is really a pile of crap :-)


Note the biggest hurdle is the most fallacious: its heat dissipation.
note2: for any class-A amp this is all irrelevant and for hgih bias AB far less relevant.
note3: read specs at 8, 4 and 2 ohms to get a good idea of real capability.