12/29/2013

What Amount Of Power Can Music Amplifiers Provide To The Speakers?

By Sherry Lambert


Choosing the ideal type is hard while confronted with a huge number of different technical jargon and specifications, such as "T-amp", "channel separation", "efficiency" and so forth. You might not even fully know the most simple of these terms, like "amplifier power". I am going to give a brief summary of the output wattage specification in order to help you better know the significance of this specification and how it relates to the functioning of an amp.

If you are exploring to purchase an audio amp to set up your home speakers, you will often be faced with a number of strange terms describing its functioning. But how do these numbers relate to how the amp sounds and how are these to be interpreted? Now I will give several fine points concerning "amplifier power". This term is time and again misunderstood. It is important to look rather closely at how the maker publishes this parameter. The output power of the amps is shown as "wattage". This shows how loud your amplifier may drive your loudspeakers. You want to pick the power amplifier wattage depending on how big your listening environment is. Most amplifiers will show increasing audio distortion as output power increases. As a result, you want to pick an amplifier that offers more output power than you will actually require. This will guarantee that you will never drive the amp into regions of big distortion.

The output wattage of the amps is shown as "wattage". This shows how loud your amplifier can drive your loudspeakers. Depending on your application, you may go with a little amp offering merely several watts or a bigger one delivering several hundred watts. Most home stereos only have amps that have several watts output power which typically is adequate for a small room. If you intend to shake your walls then you obviously wish to choose an amplifier that offers up to several hundred watts. For best audio quality, you might wish to choose an amp which offers more power than you need as most amps will show increasing distortion once the music output power increases.

These days most amps are going to specify rms power that gives a better indication of the amp's true performance. Though, please make sure that your amp offers adequate headroom to steer clear of clipping of the audio. The most important reason is that audio signals will have short bursts of high power which the amplifier has to cope with. Rms power is measured with a constant sine wave that hardly compares with a music signal by way of the power envelope.

Typically the impedance of the speakers that you connect to the amplifier will determine how much power the amplifier can offer. Speaker impedance is measured in Ohms. Generally speakers have an impedance between 4 and 8 Ohms. Because of the limited amplifier supply voltage, the largest output wattage will be half if you connect an 8-Ohm loudspeaker of the peak power which the amp can output to a 4-Ohm speaker. Regularly maximum power is specified for a 4-Ohm speaker impedance. On the other hand, ideally the maker will show which loudspeaker impedance the power rating is being referenced to. Please note that a number of amps cannot drive loudspeakers with very low speaker impedance.




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