I know this is not Jeep related, but it might save someone some major hassle either now if
you buy it for yourself or after Christmas if you give it as a gift..

On the cover of this weeks ( 12/12/04 ) Best Buy circular there is an ad for a
KOSS 1000 Watt Home Theater System..

It is NOT 1000 watts.. It is only 600 Watts..

I have contacted Best Buy headquarters and the manager of the local Best Buy, to report
this discrepancy, but they both just dismissed me..

I didn’t notice this until after I bought one and got it almost totally hooked up.. Then I had
to try to get it back in the box and spend over 1/2 an hour in the return line to get a
refund..

I contacted KOSS by email , several times..
This is what I sent:
"I recently purchased a KS5190 at Best Buy because it said it was a 1000 watt
system..

I got it home and noticed that it is NOT a 1000 watt system..
It is only 600 watts..

The subwoofer is supposed to be 190 watts,, it is only 120..
the speakers are supposed to be 135 watts each,,, they are only 80 watts..

I rechecked the model number on the back of the receiver and it said KS5190
and that was where I noticed a sticker that read 600 watts..

What sort of bait and switch are you trying to pull here.??
Or should it be refererred to as False Advertising.??"



I waited for over a week and never got a response from them..

It was the waiting in the return line for over 1/2 an hour that pissed me off the
most..

btw, this all started 3 weeks ago..

It was then that I contacted Best Buy, the manager and KOSS..

I was going to let the 'story' drop, but then this morning I saw it as a "cover" ad..
They had plenty of time to change or pull the ad, but chose not to..

This means they are trying to rip people off..

I don't care if this gets deleted or not, I was just trying
to help someone else from having to go through this BS..

Some stereo manufacturers get away with advertising a higher wattage by disclosing the 'peak' output, as opposed to the more relevant 'root mean square' (RMS) value. I know there is a significant difference, but I'm afraid that I sucked too much at acoustics to be able to fill in anything intelligent after that.

That might be an explanation. Of course, your explanation of them simply getting it wrong and refusing to admit it may also hold.

Perhaps Dennis or someone more acoustically minded may be able to solve the physics teaser/finish my post for me

you call it false advertising, they call it marketing

I used to work at best buy. First off they really only care about making the sale.
Incinerator is right all the manufactors advertise peak watts while only yamaha advertizes RMS. Your only buying junk when you buy a home theater in a box. You pay the money while you get a bare bones system which maybee good for a bedroom setup and do care about quality. Best buy only goes off what the manufactor tells them and those adds are printed months in advance.

On a side note: What I learned at best buy is that yamaha simiply makes the best recivers around. My $600 reciver hangs with recivers in the $2000-3000 range.

Yep...RMS wattage in simple terms is what the actual amplifier is capable of producing on a constant level. PEP wattage is *peak* wattage, as in those occasional really loud parts in the audio track. ( ie, explosions, screams, etc.) My music equipment room is powered by an old Marantz amplifier rated at 45 watts per channel RMS I bought in 1975. It will run circles around my Sony surround system which claims 500-600 watts (I forget exactly what it has.)So look at RMS wattage when shopping for stereo amps. Another trick they use, like the 1000 watt rig you mentioned. That is total combined wattage. Right? Say 350 watts for the sub, 125 watts per side for the front speakers, 125 per side for the rear speakers, and 150 for the center. Keep in mind it takes much more power to reproduce lower frequencies than it does for mid range and high frequencies. So realistically, you bought a stereo that has 125 watts per side when it comes to the bottom line. The only added feature is the sub woofer. And as I said, it has a higher wattage output simply because it takes that much for it to keep up with the mains.

What many people get confused over is the wattage rating on speakers. That only shows what the speaker is capable of handling (again, most likely PEP watts), and is NO reflection on it's efficiency and sound reproduction qualities. Contrary to popular belief, Bose is not the best speaker out there. (I've got an old set of 501's, but the woofers are toasted) Klipsh and Cerwin Vega will blow them away dollar for dollar spent. At least the last time I played around with them. I now run Yamaha studio monitors due to space constraints in my music room. They do very well since the majority of music I play through them is acoustic instruments. One other thing most people should know when looking at speakers. (1) The human ear hears frequencies from 20 hz to 20,000hz. (2) When you spend the extra bucks to get a speaker with a response range above 20,000hz, you just wasted your money! While the speaker may truly reproduce these advertised frequencies, you won't hear them. And...your dog probably won't be very impressed either! Because he CAN hear them.(3) Unless you just love muddy bass repsonse, anything below around 16hz is wasted effort. Bass that you feel is cool. Muddy bass irritates the hell out of me. Not to mention the SPL's to produce the sound waves involved really slam the daylights out of your ears. At age 47, I can honestly attest that frequency loss in your hearing is very real. I have a serious mid range loss in one ear from working with aircraft the past 20+ years. But I can hear home-boy and his rap/crap, or a cricket, for miles. But I can't hear people right beside me if their voice falls into that range.

TX...you worked pro audio. Did I get all that right? It's been a few years!

OK...that should make things clear as mud!

Oh yeah...SPL= Sound Pressure Level.

Sort of like tire pressure. Air your tire up to 50 psi, pull the valve core out and feel how *hard* the air hits your hand. Now...air down to 15 psi and do it again. Pretend the palm of your hand is your ear drum. Get the idea?

The more space devoted to advertise wattage of any stereo equipment = less quality of product. Seriously, you don't see a true high end system ever advertised by wattage. Look at a nice Rotel amp, a lot of them are less than 100 watts per channel...many closer to 40-50 watts. Look at Sony or Pioneer on the other hand and they *claim* in big bold red print 1.21 gigawatts!! Car stereo stuff is probably even worse in their claims. Wattage means nothing, its all about current. One way to see how good an amp is would be by looking at the wattage ratings for different loads (ohm, ie 2ohms, 4ohms, 6ohms, 8ohms). A good amplifier will have a significant increase in wattage as the load decreases...maybe equal to the change in load. So if you compare the 4ohm to 2ohm output, the wattage should be around 2X's on the 2ohm load. Cheap amps will have a very slight change, as they are using snake oil.