peak music power output (loudspeaker) (PMPO)

Peak Music Power Output (PMPO) is a characteristic value of loudspeakers and power amplifiers. It stands equally for Peak Music Power Output and Pulse Modulated Power Output and indicates the maximum load capacity in watts (W) for an extremely short, not clearly defined load period of approx. 1 ms.

This theoretical peak power output is not very meaningful, since it does not give any indication of the continuous load. As a rough approximation, one can divide the PMPO value by 100 and arrive at a realistic power specification for the nominal power. For example, a PMPO rating of 300 W may correspond to a rated power of 3 W.

The PMPO value is calculated from the dynamic range of the power amplifier. In practice, the RMS value of a sinusoidal signal is used for the evaluation of amplifiers and loudspeakers.