If you have spent a good amount of cash on a pair of good-quality speakers, you want to be sure that you get an amplifier which will deliver brilliant sound quality while meeting your budget. I will offer several pointers regarding audio amplifier products to aid you make the best purchasing decision.
There is a flood of different audio amps available that all differ in their specifications, shape and size. By following some plain suggestions, you will be able to pick the type that best fits your application and resources.
The most obvious parameter is the size of the amp. There are types that are as large as half your living room whilst several of the newest mini amplifier types are as tiny as a bar of soap. A big number of amps are the size of a regular rack. This enables your amp to be stacked on top of your other audio devices.
There are various core amplifier technologies available. One technology is known as "solid-state". Solid-state amplifiers now make up for the bulk of audio amps. In the past, tube amplifiers have been popular. Even today tube amplifiers are still available. Tube amps, on the other hand, have a relatively high level of harmonic distortion. Harmonic distortion describes how much the audio signal is degraded while being amplified. This expression is often used while comparing the audio quality of amps.
Harmonic distortion of tube amps is frequently as high as 10%. Solid-state amplifiers will have less audio distortion. Still, distortion will depend on the particular audio amplifier technology. The most conventional amplifiers utilize a "Class-A" and "Class-AB" technology. These amplifiers are also named "analog amplifiers". Audio amps which are based on these technologies generally have low harmonic distortion. Furthermore, this technology is relatively inexpensive. On the other hand, the disadvantage is that the power efficiency is merely in the order of 20% to 30%. This means that the majority of the electrical power supplied to the amplifier is wasted as heat whereas a tiny fraction is utilized to amplify the audio signal.
In comparison, "Class-D" amplifiers which are also referred to as "digital amplifiers" have a power efficiency of normally 80 to 90%. This enables the amplifier and power supply to be made a good deal smaller than analog amplifiers. The downside is that digital amplifiers frequently have higher audio distortion than analog amps. This is for the most part a consequence of the switching distortion of the output power stage. Most recent digital audio amplifiers, on the other hand, employ a feedback mechanism and can minimize the audio distortion to below 0.05%.
Your amp should deliver adequate power to drive your speakers. The amount of power will depend on the power handling rating of your speakers. An additional parameter is the size of your room. Speaker power handling is given as peak power which describes the maximum amount of power during short bursts whereas average power refers to how much power the speakers can handle continuously.
If your listening environment is fairly small then you might not need to drive your loudspeaker to its rated power handling value. You would almost certainly be ok getting an amplifier that can offer 20 to 50 Watts although your loudspeakers may be capable to tolerate 100 Watts of power. Note though that loudspeakers vary in their sensitivity. Generally a low-impedance speaker will be easier to drive to high volume than a high-impedance loudspeaker. Be sure that your amp can drive your loudspeaker impedance. You can without problems find the rated speaker impedance range in your amplifier’s user manual.
Two additional significant parameters to look at when choosing an amplifier are signal-to-noise ratio and frequency response. Signal-to-noise ratio describes how much noise the amp will generate and should be no less than 100 dB for a high-quality amp. The frequency response reveals which audio frequency range the amp covers and should be at least 20 Hz to 20 kHz.
Gunter Fellbaum has been developing audio and electronic products for over a decade. You can get additional information regarding t-amp models as well as power amplifier products from Amphony's website.
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