Need understanding on amperage

Think of each part as a tank of water.
Now the spigot/hose opening from the tank when fully open is the 'amperage'
So your wall can only dump out at full opening 100% of the time 20 amperes (this is all the time 100% without melting or starting a fire. The wall part would get warm, so would the cord from the wall, but it would not start on fire.

Then the power conditioner. Now it can if it needs to, suck at 100% of the time 20 amps from the wall. and give out it's rated 45 amperes for a certain time frame (before it pukes out) if you read the fine print in your power conditioner manual, it will tell you that the 45 amperes are only peak.. that is a short duration. So it can cope with the 20 amps coming in, as it stores some and can spit out up to 45 for moments it is needed. Your power conditioner cannot give out 45 amps 100% of the time or it would melt. The output spigot of your power conditioner is huge, but is limited by a time constraint. It can do it, but not 100% all the time. It needs moments to recharge. and it gets them with any sort of musical material. You are NOT running an arc welder.. The way most condtioners add amperage is by the design of the transformer in them, and or a big added capacitor (way complicated electrical stuff, just accept it works)

Then, finally the amplifiers. They have many CAPACITORS inside. Capacitors store energy. they can store HUGE amounts of energy. And another big transformer.
So when a demand comes in music like a big bass drum wack, the instantaneous power output can be your giant 60 amperes of current. Your amps can do that some of the time. the bigger the power supply capacitors in the amps, the longer they can dish it out. but it is not for very long. They need a little break to suck up the energy back into the caps, and your power conditioner helps them with those giant whacks by being able to (for short bursts) dump 45 amperes into the power supply capacitors of your amplifiers.

Hope this helps.

The values are 100% from the wall all the time.

Then the power conditioner is 20 amps all the time, but up to 45 amps some of the time.

Then your amps are 60 amps for very short periods of time
The TIME is really important. so those things that 'save up' the electricity, have the ability to recharge and give it out again when it is demanded.

And all you electical wizards please do not crush my little story with mountains of thoery... LOL

Thanks for your responses. Makes complete sense, thanks for using small words:)

To clarify: The 60 amps figure of the amplifier is not how much current the amp can produce driving the speaker. If it were, we could apply the power formula, which is that Power equals the current squared times the resistance of the load.

So if we give the amp the benefit of the doubt and use a 1 ohm load, that means that the power output of the amp is 60 amps squared; 3600 watts! Obviously the amp can't do that, what this 60 amp number represents is how much current is produced when the power supplies are shorted out for 10 milliseconds, something that you would never, ever want to do!

So this has little to do with whether the amp can make a lot of 'current' when driving low impedance loads. I know of several tube amps that don't make nearly the same power than tout the same figure.

To further clarify.

When you look at a "current rating" spec you need to know at least two things:

(1) At what voltage is the current being specified.

(2) Is the rating CONTINUOUS or transient.

The ratings on wall power are usually continuous maximums (in root mean square or RMS) and are at your line voltage of 120 V AC.

The 60 amp rating for a power amp like the Parasound are TRANSIENT, good for only a very short time and at a voltage much lower than your line power levels.

Make no mistake, if that A21 tried to output 60 amps for more than a few milliseconds, fuses would blow.

In the old days, manufacturers were required to avoid transient power/voltage/current specs because they can be so misleading for consumers. Only RMS continuous specs were allowed to be published.

Watts = Volts * Amps

Never heard of an amplifier rated in "amps per channel" before.