Apartment 15 Amp Circuit Question: Kaboom?

fatchowmein

If I purchase a Rotel RMB-1095 or Adcom GFA-7705 and plug one of these beasts into a 15 amp circuit in an apartment, will this result in...

1. Lights flickering?
2. Fire/explosion/blackouts/brownouts?
3. Feedback/humming/breaker tripping whenever the a/c, fridge, or my wife's blow-dryer kicks in?

Dennis Gardner

The specs of the two amps are confusing since the Rotel claims 1200 watts consumption and the Adcom claims 2500 watts max consumption.

A 15 amp circuit is good for about 1800 watts.

Both amps will get you evicted in short order and I wouldn't want to be your neighbor.

fatchowmein

Thanks, Dennis. Yes, the spec's are confusing. Actually, I'm a nice neighbor. The entire setup gets turned down after 9, off at 10, or I plug in a set of headphones. I even have a downfiring sub and haven't had a complaint from management or neighbors. I go for clarity over loudness but you may hear Beethoven's 9th, Norah Jones, or the Bourne Identity turned up a bit on a Saturday afternoon. Of course, I may be delusional.

Maybe I should stick with 5x125W instead?

ben62670

I wouldn't worry too much about it. With amps like that they have large capacitors that smooth things out a bit. You would have to send a continuous long blast of serious bass heavy music through all channels to get anywhere near that rating. If something else is on that circuit that might be a different story. I know that big amps like these have a soft start circuit that limits the amount of currant that it draws till the caps load up.

mulveling

You won't hit the maximum power draw spec unless you try to continuously run the amps at max rated power...if you're a good neighbor then you'll be running and consuming far, far under that

For example - my JC1's monoblocks have a maxumum rated power draw of 1200 Watts each (2400 Watts a pair :eek:) into a 4 ohm load, but that's only when they're pushing out the max 800 Watts of continuous audio power. Since I'm never realistically going to demand more than 400 Watts audio power (probably won't even get close to that), I can assume that my max power draw will be no more than 1200-400 = 800 Watts each (actually less since the amp isn't 100% efficient), for a combined draw of 1600 Watts, which fits into the 1800 Watts of a 15amp line. Again, since the calculation above was so conservative, I should have plenty of Watts left for other components.

As mentioned above, transient power demands, even very high ones, should be covered by the power supply caps.

In practice, I've not noticed any issues running the JC1's off a standard line - no flickering lights, burnt toast, melted ice cream, etc. Of course I'd love to have 20-amp dedicated lines, but that's not feasible.

dudeinaroom

My Adcom is rated to draw 1000 watts max, I also live in an apartment with 15 amp circuits. The only time the light flicker is when I first turn my amp on.

Spacedeckman

1 watt of amplifier output is very loud. Most of your time is spent less than that. Your lights will dim a bit on turn-on, but that's about it.

I ran a pair of Bryston 7B monos (600WPC) on a single 15 amp circuit with no problems, well beyond what you are talking about. I really want them back.

Mark