How many watts is my system using?

Mystang,

Yes your calculation is correct...

Per hour.

Your electric company charges by the kwh or per 1000 watts. To figure how much you stereo is costing you the formula would be: 732 watts = .732 x "the kwh rate". So if the rate was say 20 cents per hour, you would be paying 14.64 cents per hour, not so much, BUT if you leave it on 24/7, you will be adding $105 a month to your bill. You will probably get a Xmas card from them.

Yeah, leaving my Forte 4a amp and stuff on 24/7 cost me around $10.00 a month... (I no longer leave it on. only because I do not want to be too big a carbon hog...)

Thank you all. I just got a tube amp and noticed that the reading on my conditioner went from 4.9 Which is what my s.s. Amp And system used to 6 amps now that I have a tube amp. I do turn the system off when not in use to keep from going broke.

Maybe this will help with the "time" or "rate" question. The unit you are speaking of, the watt, is a unit of power. Power is energy per unit time. 1 watt is 1 joule per 1 second. So time is "built into" the "watt". That is, the watt is, by definition, a rate. If you are dissipating 1 watt for 1 second you 'use' 1 joule, 1 watt for 2 seconds = 2 joules. The utility company is technically charging you for energy usage. The unit is typically a kW hr - a larger unit than a joule, i.e. 50 KwH = 180000000 joules. Why is any of it important other than the electric bill? Think of energy as heat, that is what the big deal about power really ends up at in electronics.