11/08/2012

Can Modern Small Stereo Amplifiers Compete When It Comes To Audio Wattage?

By Michael Jacobs


Current music amps are able to deliver rather high energy to a loudspeaker regardless of being very compact. In this article, I will take a look at exactly why new audio amps are a whole lot smaller as compared to vintage power amplifiers and additionally just how much power small power amplifiers including Class-T amplifiers will supply to a speaker.

Historically, audio amplifiers that supply average to high wattage would be rather large and also heavy. Amps that are making use of linear power supplies are pretty heavy because the metal core of the energy source transformer is fairly large so as to provide adequate power. More contemporary t-amplifiers are employing switched-mode power sources which tend to be a great deal more compact and also considerably more light-weight than linear power supplies. Advanced sound amplifiers often even now employ linear power supplies irrespective of their weight and lower efficiency considering that their output energy is cleaner compared to that of switching power supplies.

Apart from the power source, the main reason for conventional audio amps to get relatively large is because of their low energy efficiency. Energy efficiency explains the amount of energy the music amplifier supplies versus what amount of power the amp uses. The lower the amp efficiency the more power is dissipated by the amplifier as heat. A big amount of wasted power needs heavy heat sinks to keep the amp from getting too hot. The more energy is radiated by the amplifier, the larger the necessary heat sink becomes. Newer amplifiers are typically using the Class-D topology. Class-D sound amps are additionally referred to as switching amplifiers. These stereo amps provide greater efficiency as compared to classic Class-A or Class-AB music amps. As such a lot less power is radiated as heat. Low-efficiency sound amps are bigger than high-efficiency amplifiers not merely because of the requirement for heat sinks but in addition for the reason that they demand a larger energy source. Advanced high-efficiency small audio amps in many cases employ their enclosure by itself as a heat sink.

Aside from audio amplifiers which include an internal energy supply, you will also find models which need a DC voltage to be able to operate and utilize an external AC adapter. The supply voltage is among the following three essential parameters that are frequently utilized to figure out the greatest wattage of a stereo amp. The first is the power supply voltage. The second is the amplifier topology. The third is the speaker impedance. Besides these vital variables, there are several other parameters such as maximum power supply DC current, the kind of power transistors employed in the power amp along with the amp thermal handling ability.

I want to evaluate the three key parameters to be able to find out the stereo amp wattage. An amplifier may only drive the speaker terminal between the two power rails, i.e. positive source voltage and ground. The higher the DC supply voltage, the more the power amplifier may drive the loudspeakers. Audio amplifiers which only drive one of the two loudspeaker terminals, i.e. work in single-ended mode, may provide merely one quarter of the energy when compared to power amps that drive both speaker terminals at the identical supply voltage. As a consequence if the power source DC voltage is relatively small, be certain that the amp works in full-bridged mode. Also, the greater the speaker impedance, the smaller the wattage that the amplifier may supply to a loudspeaker. An 8 Ohm speaker may only be driven at one half the wattage as a 4 Ohm speaker from a set DC power supply.




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