Need understanding on amperage


Forgive me for being a little slow but I'm confused on how to understand the amp ratings:

My circuit to my gear is 20 amps
My conditioner is good to 45 amps (Furman Elite PF15)
My amp is rated at 60 amps per channel (Parasound A21)
and my speakers suck amperage like its going out of style. (Thiel cs2.4's)

So how is it my amp can run 60 amps if my wall outlet is only rated at 20? Is this reserve amps held by the transformer?
And if my power conditioner is rated at 45 amps then am I shortchanging myself by running my amp through it?
And If all this is true then why aren't I throwing the circuit breaker all the time when the system is cranked up?

Again, I'm slow, so use small words so I can understand ;)
last_lemming
Agreed. I know nothing of his specific amp other than they rated the transistors at 60 amps. No speaker could handle that level of amperage without blowing fuses, crossovers or drivers.
That is cool about your tube amps. I agree, there is no substitute for iron and copper. One nice feature about tube amps with transformer outputs- you can't blow them by shorting the outputs. Transistor amps are not so robust regardless of their current rating. I don't know how much protection today's SS amps, or my SS amp for that matter, have built in to guard against shorting. I'm certainly not willing to test my amp. But I know a few decades ago that one of our LVDT suppliers used to use audio tube amps for testing them and never had issues. When they updated to SS amps, even the briefest shorting of the output leads would pop the transistors. They had to redesign their test stations so the production operators couldn't short the amps.
From the A21 schematic published by Parasound, each power buss to the output stage is fused to 8 amps. No amplifier fused for 8 amps will run 60 amps very long before vaporizing the fuse link.

From the Littlefuse data sheets for an 8 amp fast blow fuse, 60 amps blows the fuse in about 10 milliseconds. Each channel has 50,000 mfds of capacitance, and left and right channels have separate power supplies (so the full 100,000 mfds is not applied to a single 60 amp transient, only 50,000 mfds is, and those are further divided to a V+ cap at 25,000 and a V- cap at 25,000 mfd).

If you calculate the drop in voltage of the 25,000 mfd capacitor, I=C*dV/dt, so I=60 amps, C=25,000 mfd, and dt = 10 milliseconds (the time to blow the fuse), we find dV = 24 volts, or about 1/3 of the 80V supply voltage.

So if you shorted this amp, it would deliver 60 amps for the 10 milliseconds needed to burn the fuse, and have plenty of power supply voltage left in the capacitor.

It could potentially drive a 1 ohm load to 60V (or 3600 W) for 10 milliseconds. That's it, and it's limited by the fusing.
Dhl93449, your math looks right but your conclusion doesn't. At the end of 10mS the supply voltage is only 24V so the current would be 24 amps- only 576 watts. The fuse would go a little longer and the 3600 watt figure would go much shorter or am I missing something?
I think the change is voltage (dV) is 24V. So starting from 80V in DHl's equation means that the ending voltage after 10ms is 56V which is still 3136 Watts, right?
Atmasphere/Tonywise

Yes, the remaining voltage would be 56 volts, and the average power delivered would be between 3600 and 3136 Wts. And it may be somewhat less because we are not accounting for the voltage drop across the output stage transistors (it won't be zero, and will be dependant whether the transistors are being driven into saturation or not).

Guys, it was just a ballpark analysis. It also did not include the re-charge of the capacitor by the transformer or that perhaps both the V+ and V- capacitors might be discharged partially.

My point being is that the delivery of 60 amps to the load will be limited by the fuse characterisitcs primarily. Whether it is 10 milliseconds or 15 milliseconds is not that important.

BTW, I would hope that the fuse was sized to prevent the bipolar output transistors from going into secondary breakdown. If this happens, the power transistors fail and the entire output stage is toast before the fuse can protect them.