3/17/2014

Do Not Be Deceived By The Manufacturer Ratings Of The Latest Stereo Amps

By Marta McBrian


When buying a new amp, you probably are going to take a glimpse at the technical specs. An often found spec is the frequency response. This parameter while critical does not tell the full story with regards to how good the amp is going to sound. I will explain the meaning of this expression and also give a few recommendations on how to interpret it whilst searching for an amp. An amplifier is going to enlarge an audio signal which is inside the frequency response range. This range is specified by listing two frequencies: a lower and upper frequency. As an example, the lower frequency may be 20 Hz and the upper frequency 20 kHz. Using this specification it seems the amplifier could function as a HIFI amp. Yet, there is a lot more to comprehending the amplifier's overall performance than just looking at these numbers.

An amplifier is able to only function inside of a particular frequency range. Any kind of signals just outside of this range will be removed. Therefore the frequency response offers a vital hint pertaining to if a specific amplifier could be suitable for a particular application. Usually a lower and upper frequency are listed, for instance 20 Hz - 20 kHz. This kind of spec shows that the amp can amplify music within this frequency range. You may think the larger the frequency response the higher quality the amplifier. That, on the other hand, may well not always be the case. You need to evaluate the specifications a lot more carefully in order to adequately interpret all of them.

However, various manufacturers push this standard to the limit and will show an upper frequency where the amp is going to hardly create a signal any more. Furthermore, just considering these 2 numbers won't say much about the linearity of the frequency response. A complete frequency response graph, however, will demonstrate whether there are any peaks or valleys and also show how the frequency response is to be understood. You may also want to request a phase response diagram that also gives crucial clues in regards to the quality of sound.

The frequency response of Class-D amps shows the biggest change with various speaker loads because of the integrated lowpass filter that removes switching noise from the amplifier's signal. However, the frequency response of the amp now will depend on the loudspeaker load considering that the behavior of this lowpass filter is affected by the load impedance. Typically the lower the loudspeaker load impedance the lower the upper cut-off frequency of the amp

Mainly modern digital or "Class-D" amps can have changes in the frequency response with different loads. The primary reason is the fact that Class-D amplifiers employ switching FETs as the power phase which produce lots of switching components. These components are eliminated by a filter that is part of the amplifier. A varying loudspeaker load is going to affect the filter response to some amount. Generally the lower the speaker impedance the lower the highest frequency of the amplifier. Also, the linearity of the amplifier gain is going to be determined by the load. Various amplifiers include feedback as a way to compensate for changes in gain because of different connected loads. One more method is to offer specific outputs for different speaker impedances which are attached to the amplifier power phase via audio transformers.




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