"Specmanship"

Years ago when my family owned a stereo store, we used to go to the Consumer Electronics Shows (CES) where all the new electronic products for the year was introduced.  It was one of the highlights of being a stereo dealer.  To get consumers to buy, manufacturers used to exaggerate their specifications.  For instance, they would combine the wattage of a stereo amplifier's left and right channels and call it a more powerful amp.  A 100 watt per channel amp might be touted as a 200 watt amp simply by adding the two channel's power specification together.

"Specmanship" is a term we gave to those products that pushed the limit of specifications.  An amplifier can be 100 watts per channel or it can be said to be perhap 250 watts per channel.  How?  Well, if you push that amplifier so that the distortion is moved up as well, you can get a lot more power.  Granted, it is "distorted" power, but it's power none-the-less.  "Specmanship."  Not good.

Today, I'm noticing some companies are doing this again.  A five channel receiver that has 100 watts for each of its channels (used in a 5.1 surround sound system) might be said to have 500 watts of power.  Come on!  That's specmanship once again!

I recently saw some powered speakers used for PA systems (public address systems) that had 500 watts of power going into the woofer and 500 watts going to the tweeter. Now there's no way a tweeter would need 500 watts.  You'd burn out the tweeter well before you would hit 500 watts going into it.  Yet, the powered speaker was advertised as a 1000 watt powered speaker!  While you might have the ability to have two amps running together, I'll bet that tweeter amp is never going to reach the bi-amp'ed 500 watts.  "Specmanship."  Not good.

So years ago when the electronics industry had cracked down on manufacturers misleading the public with specmanship, it seems once again, this practice is out there to make products appear more powerful than they actually are when in use.  I'm disappointed.  :(