Sunday 1 December 2013

What Type Of Audio Amplifiers Deliver The Greatest Audio Quality?

By Mike Heller


If you have spent a good deal of money on a pair of good-quality speakers, you wish to be sure that you get an amplifier which will provide outstanding sound quality while meeting your budget. I will provide various tips regarding audio amplifier products to aid you make the best buying decision.

A important parameter is the size of the amp. You can get models that can fill half a room. In contrast, a few of the latest miniature amplifier types are no larger than a deck of cards. A lot of units will be the size of a ordinary audio rack so that you can simply stack it on top of your audio equipment.

There are some core amplifier technologies available. One technology is known as "solid-state". Solid-state amps now account for the majority of audio amplifiers. In the past, tube amps have been popular. Even today tube amplifiers are still available. Unfortunately, tube amps have fairly high audio distortion which describes how much the audio signal is degraded by the amp.

There are a number of core amplifier technologies available. One technology is known as "solid-state". Solid-state amps now account for the greater part of audio amps. In the past, tube amps have been popular. Even today tube amplifiers are still available. Regrettably, tube amplifiers have fairly large audio distortion which describes how much the audio signal is degraded by the amplifier.

Tube amplifiers will have audio distortion of up to 10%. Solid state amplifiers will have lower audio distortion depending on the amplifier technology that is used. The most conventional amps use a "Class-A" and "Class-AB" technology. These amps are also referred to as "analog amplifiers". While amplifiers using these technologies normally have low audio distortion, power efficiency is merely 10% to 30%. This means that the majority of the electrical power supplied to the amplifier is wasted as heat while a tiny fraction is utilized to amplify the audio signal.

The amplifier should be able to deliver adequate output power to sufficiently drive your loudspeakers which will depend not only on how much power your loudspeakers can tolerate but also on the size of your listening area. Speaker power handling ability is given as peak power and average power. The peak power value refers to how much power the speaker can tolerate for a short period of time while the average power handling value describes how much power you can drive the loudspeaker at continuously without damage.

If your listening environment is fairly small then you might not require to drive your loudspeaker to its rated power handling value. You would almost certainly be good having an amp that can deliver 20 to 50 Watts while your loudspeakers may be capable to handle 100 Watts of power. Notice though that loudspeakers vary in their sensitivity. Generally a low-impedance speaker will be simpler to drive to high volume than a high-impedance speaker. Be sure that your amp can drive your speaker impedance. You can easily find the rated speaker impedance range in your amplifier's user manual.

Additional important parameters are the signal-to-noise ratio and frequency response which should be in the order of no less than 100 dB signal-to-noise ratio and 20 Hz to 20 kHz frequency response for high-quality amplifiers.




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