A Great Amplifier ... for the

Environment

The home electronics industry doesn't seem to want to talk about this, but amplifiers and receivers can use an enormous amount of electricity.

And now, with the trend toward more speakers in the room, often up to seven speakers, the problem is magnified. Take for example, a good quality, popular receiver, the Onkyo TX-NR609. On it's back panel, the power rating is 6.2A (that's amps). Just multiply that by 120 (volts) to get the consumption in watts... 744 watts. That's probably one of the biggest electriciy hogs most people would own. And if you're trying to be green, this is definitely moving in the wrong direction.

There's one amp on the market that really stands out; it's also from Onkyo. While almost all amps and receivers on the market are less than 50 percent efficient, this amp uses a design called Class-D, that is typically between 80 and 90 percent efficient (it depends a lot on the impedence of the speaker you hook up to it). The amp is the Onkyo A-5VL A-5VL
(click on the "See price in cart" link to get the current price; these are being heavily discounted).

Personally, I'd prefer this over just about all the the A/V receivers on the market. Properly designed Class-D amps, like this one, have a very sweet, non-fatiguing sound, that is really what most of us want, but is often kind of elusive.

This also puts you on track to get a system that will hold it's own with systems costing several times more. Don't pay for seven channels of amplification and seven speakers, get a good quality 2 channel amp and 2 two great speakers. You'll be astounded at how good a set up like this can sound. Look at speaker brands like KEF, B&W, Martin Logan, PSB and Monitor Audio. Paired to this Onkyo amp, you should be able to enjoy music, and movies, for a decade or more, without feeling the need to replace equipment.

I think that arguably this could be considered the best amp in the world. As a nation, we keep consuming more and more energy. we need to be thinking about "less", less electricty. The power consumption of this guy? A deliciously low 110 watts, or 15 percent of the Onkyo A/V receiver mentined above.