Hi,
My newly acquired 881 says 370 watts on back. Does this mean it pushes 185 watts per channel?

I was told it was 80 watts per. But it sure seems to push WAY MORE than that hooked to my SP-3500 speakers.

The 3500's say 100 watts max on back and I would not want to fry them. (Like my ears or house walls could handle more than half on the volume dial without exploding, lol)

Thanks

Divide 370 by 4 and that's pretty darn close. I'd say about 90WPC at 8OHMS and more like 110 WPC at 4OHMS. Plenty of power to rattle the pictures on your walls. I saw your 3500's and they are nice!

Feel free to correct me if my Electronics 101 is a bit off :)

Divide 370 by 4 and that's pretty darn close. I'd say about 90WPC at 8OHMS and more like 110 WPC at 4OHMS. Plenty of power to rattle the pictures on your walls. I saw your 3500's and they are nice!

Feel free to correct me if my Electronics 101 is a bit off :)

Why divide by 4? The 881 has jacks for 3 pairs of speakers and is a Stereo unit not a quad.

Explain please.

Thanks for the 3500 compliment.

The 881 drives them pretty hard and loud at 1/4 volume with no loudness switched on and midway on the tone controls.

The 881 seems to be one bad mutha! :) loads of jacks on back too.

GLAD I BOUGHT IT!

This is great to hear! I won an 881 a few days ago and it has yet to arrive. I have a few pairs of extra SP-3500's that I plan on hooking up to it!

I am excited! :banana:

btw - I have the 881 SM if you need it.

This is great to hear! I won an 881 a few days ago and it has yet to arrive. I have a few pairs of extra SP-3500's that I plan on hooking up to it!

I am excited!

:D

OH YEAH! Me thinks you will like. Lots of juice with a very clean , pleasant sound. I'm hooked.

I'm gonna have to keep a look-out for a couple broke ones for backup parts.

Let me know how you like it. :music:

Sansui 881
Specifications: (classicaudio.com)
Power Output: 60 Watts per channel RMS into 8 ohms
Power Band: 20 to 20,000Hz
Total Harmonic Distortion: <0.3%
Frequency Response: 10 to 30,000Hz +/- 1.0dB
Damping Factor: 45
Hum and Noise-Phono: >70dB
Hum and Noise-Aux: >80dB

FM Sensitivity: 1.8 uV
FM THD Mono: 0.3%
FM THD Stereo: 0.5%
FM Separation: >40dB at 1000Hz
FM Frequency Response: 30 to 15,000Hz +0.5/-3.0dB

Sansui 881
Specifications: (classicaudio.com)
Power Output: 60 Watts per channel RMS into 8 ohms


WOW, that's a very well used 60 watts. I guess the key phrase is RMS.
Thanks

If your outfit pushes 8 ohms. Does that mean you should only use 8 ohm rated speakers?
Or can you use 4 ohm speakers let's say......safely and efficiently?

Your 881 should be able to push 1 set of 4 Ohm speakers safely (speaker A), or 2 sets of 8 Ohm speakers (speakers A+B). Either of those 2 configurations should present a 4 Ohm load to your amp,which should be OK. I wouldn't try to run 2 sets of 4 Ohm speakers (A+B) that would present a 2 Ohm load to your amp, and be very risky. You could hook 2 sets of 4 Ohm speakers to (speakers A+B) but never run them together at the same time, either A or B. hope this helps. There are some very good threads on this site that explain this in some detail, do a search. Enjoy the music CC

The power rating printed on the back of the unit is the maximum amount of electrical power it will pull from your wall socket. How much of that is turned into music power for your speakers is determined by the efficiency of the unit's electronics.

The divide by 4 trick is a very rough method of translating the maximum power consumption into music power per channel. It assumes 50% electrical efficiency. As you can see in this case, that math doesn't work. I suspect that the divide by 4 technique is less accurate on lower power receivers.

I also suspect that the back panel rating includes the power requirements of the accessory outlets on the back panel.

Ebay sellers will often use the power consumption rating as gospel for power output so be careful when reading Ebay ads.

- Pete

The power rating printed on the back of the unit is the maximum amount of electrical power .................................................. .................................................. ..............................................- Pete

First off--> THANK YOU Cosmic Charlie for the OHM answer. I get it now.

Second --> Also thanks one and all for the RMS power explanations.

Is it also true as I've heard that Sansui was famous for under rating the specs they put out. So that in fact you usually got much more and better than advertised?

Sure SOUNDS that way.

I have read that Sansui did that in their heyday to 'let the products speak for themselves' and the customer would always be pleasantly satisfied. I cant recall a single thread I have read here about a Sansui coming across a tech's bench (Like EchoWars, for instance) in which the output rating fell under the manufacturers specifications. It seems to be the opposite! They really did have solid engineering. Take a look under the hood of an AU-9500 sometime. From the models I have seen, I think that model is the pinnacle of internal design. I have even seen photos of unclothed AU-9500s as a few users avatars for this reason!

Take a look under the hood of an AU-9500 sometime. From the models I have seen, I think that model is the pinnacle of internal design. I have even seen photos of unclothed AU-9500s as a few users avatars for this reason!
Agree about AU-9500 and ofcourse TU-9500 :thmbsp: See pics

In the late '60s and early '70s when transistor based gear was just coming into it's own, the manufacturers would advertise fantastic power rating. Usually based on the maximum peak output. These high output values would only occur briefly in some musical passages and weren't close to a good gauge of continuous power.

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) eventually clamped down on these fantastic claims and set standards for power output claims. To meet the FTC requirements, the ads could only claim continuous power with both channels driven into an 8 ohm load. The unit had to be capable at producing the claimed rating at any point in the frequency range generally 20-20,000 Hz. Since the FTC could walk into any stereo store and pull a unit to test, the Japanese manufactures were pretty conservative with the published values to ensure the worst unit manufactured would exceed the published values.

Today when guys bench test units they typically do it at an optimum frequency, say 1000 Hz. When measured like this, the output will exceed the published specs provided there is not some problem with the unit.

- Pete

I just felt one of those "The More You Know" rainbows shoot over my head!!

Thanks Pete!

WELL, ask a simple question and you get................................

the answers. ALL OF THEM! :thmbsp:

Thanks all