Wednesday 2 April 2014

A Few Unknown Specifics About Modern Power Amps

By Marta McBrian


The frequency response is one of the most frequently found parameter to characterize power amplifiers. Having said that, it may regularly be misleading and might possibly not provide a good sign of the sound quality. You might not fully grasp exactly how the frequency response is calculated. I'm going to describe what specifically this specific term means. Ideally you will be able to make a much more informed buying decision.

The truth is, an amplifier with a frequency response from 10 Hz to 30 kHz might actually have much worse sound quality than an amplifier which offers a frequency response from 20 Hz to 15 kHz. Different suppliers seem to employ different ways to determine frequency response. The standard convention is to display the frequency range inside of which the gain will decrease at most 3 dB from the nominal gain.

Yet, many producers disregard this particular convention. They push the lower frequency and upper frequency to where the amp hardly provides any kind of gain. In addition, these numbers tell nothing about precisely how linear the amplifier is operating within this range. If possible you ought to attempt to get a frequency response chart from the supplier. In this chart, you will find how the amp behaves inside the frequency response range. You can also spot any peaks along with valleys the amp might have. Also you can desire to ask for a phase response chart that gives crucial clues about the audio quality.

You additionally want to look at the circumstances under which the frequency response was measured. You generally won't find any kind of information about the measurement conditions, unfortunately, in the manufacturer's data sheet. The fact is amps might have different frequency responses depending on the loudspeaker that is attached. This change is most apparent with many digital amplifiers, often known as Class-D amplifiers. Class-D amplifiers have a lowpass filter in their output to be able to reduce the switching components which are generated from the internal power FETs. The lowpass filter characteristic, on the other hand, heavily depends on the attached load.

This change is most obvious with most digital amplifiers, often known as Class-D amplifiers. Class-D amplifiers employ a lowpass filter inside their output as a way to suppress the switching components which are generated through the internal power FETs. A varying loudspeaker load will affect the filter response to some degree. Usually the lower the loudspeaker impedance the lower the highest frequency of the amplifier. Also, the linearity of the amplifier gain is going to depend on the load. Several amp topologies offer a mechanism to compensate for variations in the amplifier gain with different speaker loads. One example of these approaches makes use of feedback. The amplifier output signal after the internal lowpass is input to the amplifier input for comparison. If not developed adequately, this approach might result in instability of the amp though. One more approach uses audio transformers between the power stage of the amp and several outputs. Every single output was designed to attach a different speaker load. This approach helps to ensure that the amplifier is going to be loaded equally and in addition increases amplifier efficiency.




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