Krell Power Consumption

Dob,
As far as I know, regulation and PF should be unrelated.
PF is a measure of the reactance of a load, be that inductive or capacitive.
A (perfect) resistor has a PF of 1.0 while at a PF of 0, no work is done.

I'd be curious to know how PF and regulation relate.

Thin Ice alert:
Isn't regulation simply how well the PS maintains voltage under load? Aren't their either formula answers or 'rule of thumb' answers to how much capacitance a PS needs given voltage and proposed power output? Doesn't that kick out a %ripple number....lower generally being better?

Here in Southern California our power is very expensive.
While my first 280kwh or so is at about 0.15$/kwh, once I'm above that point, my rates go in 2 tiers. The highest marginal rate is about 0.20$kwh and I expect that to go UP since we now have rat-fink electronic meters that can be programmed for different rates at different times of day.

At 7.2kwh/ day, the Krell is wacky expensive to run. My current usage is about 450kwh/month to which the krell would add about 50%. That's even MORE than the 20 year old 'fridge I just junked out in favor of a unit rated at about 450kwh/year.

I use slightly different numbers to get to agreement with Ken.

Dob,
Into which camp do you place the ASP modules from B&O?
I've lost track of all the players using these modules....from Bel Canto on down.
My PSAudio is a fine piece of goods but has the dread SMPS.

Even the lower consumption is 4x what my refrigerator draws.
The new number is about 6.5 kwh/day.

Does anyone have a kill-a-watt meter to actually measure this?

Now, the ASP modules COME with an on-board SMPS. There will need to be some modifications made for these additional power supply components. Bel Canto adds a board in the top monos.
B&O warranty considerations will apply, but as long as the modifier covers it, I'm ok.

I'm just curious what the supposed effect of PFC is on your amp or sound? Making your power supply look more like a resistor to the power company? I don't get it.
Also, what is the measured PF of any amp? Does anyone have any data? I may measure my amp using test tones to get some idea.

Tmsorosk:
PF is a measure of the reactance of the load.
your monster will display what? Watts or VA? maybe Amps and Volts?

I doubt it displays PF.

Just an example. My 40 watt fluorescent lamp next to my workstation measures about .34 amps. at 117.5v that is about 40va. But, since the lamp has a PF of about .8, it is only about 32 watts.
My electric company (yours, too) bills for WATTS but you use VA. The electric utility company will bill you a surcharge for Low PF. Some factories even have huge PFC correction circuitry in order to avoid this surcharge.

If you want to just monitor power consumption and get an idea what the PF of various devices is, get the 'Kill-A-Watt' meter.....they are very inexpensive and functional.

I guess we're talking about 2 different things.
Power Factor is simply the phase relationship between voltage and current in an AC signal...be it the power coming in or the audio to your speakers.

The JRDG approach is a complete power supply and IMO, the PF is tossed in as an advert blurb. This does NOT mean the power supply does not work as advertised. Just that PFC doesn't have much to do with it.

The article you linked is good....as far as it goes. In the discussion of REAL speaker loads, NO mention is made of phase angle. At a phase angle of 45 degrees....not uncommon, the delivered power will drop by about 30%. This represents an additional load to the amp. Now, I realize the numbers were used for illustration purposes only, but that is the real effect of phase on deliverable power.
The same is true of the power supply as it plugs into the wall. I'm no expert at this, but if your power supply has a 100va transformer and a PF of say.....0.8, you won't be able to get the full power out of the transformer..it'll saturate.

Does the JRDG amp deliver? You bet. Does PF have much to do with the rest of the claims? I'm a little leery.