If you have spent a good amount of cash on a pair of good-quality speakers, you wish to be certain that you get an audio amplifier that will provide superb audio quality while meeting your budget. I will give a few pointers about audio amplifier devices to help you make the perfect purchasing decision.
Audio amps appear in all different shapes and sizes. They utilize different technologies and have numerous technical specs. This makes it tricky to make a decision which model to choose. You don’t have to be a guru. Just follow some easy guidelines and you ought to be pleased with your amplifier.
Amplifiers differ in their size and range from models that will take up a good part of your living room while some of the latest mini amplifier types are as tiny as a deck of cards. Numerous units will be the size of a standard audio rack so that you can simply stack it on top of your audio equipment.
Nearly all of today’s audio amplifiers are based on solid-state technology while a small portion is based on tube technology which has been popular over a decade ago. Tube amps, though, have a fairly large amount 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 amplifiers.
Tube amplifiers will have audio distortion of up to 10%. Solid state amplifiers will have less audio distortion depending on the amplifier technology that is utilized. In the past, for the most part “Class-A” and “Class-AB” amps were available which are also known as “analog amplifiers”. This technology provides fairly low audio distortion. However, the power efficiency is merely 10 to 30%. This means that most of the electrical power provided to the amp is wasted as heat whereas a small fraction is used to amplify the audio signal.
In comparison, “Class-D” amps which are also referred to as “digital amplifiers” offer a power efficiency of normally 80 to 90%. This permits the amp and power supply to be made a great deal smaller than analog amplifiers. Because of the switching output stage, digital amplifiers typically have higher harmonic distortion than analog amplifiers. Though, a number of of the latest models are able to reduce distortion to 0.05% and less by using a feedback mechanism.
When choosing an amp, make certain that the output power is sufficient to drive your loudspeakers. The required power will be determined by how much power your loudspeakers can handle as well as the size of your space where you will be listening. Loudspeaker power handling ability is specified 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 denotes how much power you can drive the loudspeaker at constantly without harm.
If your listening area is rather small then you might not require to drive your loudspeaker to its rated power handling value. You would almost certainly be ok getting an amplifier that can deliver 20 to 50 Watts despite the fact that your speakers might be able to tolerate 100 Watts of power. Notice however that speakers vary in their sensitivity. Usually a low-impedance speaker will be simpler to drive to high volume than a high-impedance loudspeaker. Check your amplifier manual to make sure that your amplifier can drive your loudspeaker impedance.
Finally, ensure that your amp introduces little noise and has a broad enough frequency response. High-quality amplifiers will have a signal-to-noise ratio of no less than 100 dB and a frequency response of a minimum of 20 Hz to 20 kHz.