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It would be interesting, especially with some of the Class A power amps.
Cars rate energy use as miles per gallon (MPG), but what about audio equipment? Reader "wook" wants to know: "Would you like <I>Stereophile</I>'s reviews to include power-draw measurements?"
I hate to say it, but high-powered class A amps are the Hummers of the audio world. Use them in air conditioned houses and they are Hummers toted behind 40' RVs (out to experience "nature", of all things). The extreme lengths of finance, effort, and energy we expend on ever better sound does not exempt us from being responsible citizens. High-efficiency horns are looking (and sounding) better all the time!
Absolutly yes, we, the audio community, need to have a responsible attitude towards the enviroment. Besides it costs too much to run a complete system that wastes a lot of electricity as heat, regardless of how good it sounds. On the other hand, your reviews should include some kind of analisys of parts quantity and quality related to street price of the product review, in other words, is it worth the asked price, regardless of how it sounds. I am tired of overpriced products that seems to have really poor quality and value.
No, but there are other issues which I feel would be much more important to me (and, perhaps, others)when reading a review of a product I am considering, which I feel are much more practical. How much noise does the transport make while playing CDs? How many CDs did the player not be able to play during the review process? How long did the equipment break in for before reviewers' critical listening? How much warm up time is required for the piece to sound its best? What tweaks are being used with the review sample (isolation, power conditioning, etc) and, specifically, what interconnects and power cords are being used with the product, and, although you can get a sense of what other gear is being used from the list of "associated equipment", since there are usually multiple items of one piece of equipment listed, how about being more specific?