Seems like a handy device

Just bought a "Kill A Watt" energy consumption meter that I saw in the RadioShack flyer for $39.99. Got it home, took it out of the box and plugged it in to an outlet and 118.8 volts. Not bad I thought. Then it started climbing and over the next two or three minutes it made it up to 120.6 volts before it headed back down. Well, everything seems fine here, now lets see how many watts that McCormack DNA 2 Deluxe is drawing. Down to the basement, yes the basement, thats where my amp landed in order to shorten the speaker runs to 10 ft. It sits in a "display case" suspended from the floor joists. Amp off, unplug it, plug in the meter, plug the amp in to it and turn the amp back on. Yowser, 265 watts with no volume. Back up stairs and turn the rest of the equipment on and bring the volume up a little and head downstairs. Still 265 watts. Now I'm thinking at least its not sucking up 500 watts just to play music and if I was looking to save money I'd be listening to a boom box and not participating in this hobby. Lets come back in fifteen minutes when it goes into standby and see what its drawing then. Hey, look at that. Its supposed draw 135 watts in standby and its only 99 to 101. Lets go try the computer and then the 19 inch monitor. It stays on most of the time too. And what about that floor lamp next to the desk with the 40 watt bulb. I'll bet its using more than 40 watts. Wrong. Its using 36. Things are looking brighter all the time. This seems like a pretty handy device and its not very expensive and someone like myself whose not an electrical engineer and is closer to the bottom of the ladder of audio knowledge than the top can figure out how to use it. Thanks everybody.

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F008%5F021%5F003%5F000&product%5Fid=63%2D1152

Peter
05301