Assessing Several Tripath Amps By Their Wattage
Considering some of the technical specs of today's audio amplifiers, one cannot help but be at a loss in attempting to compare different products and terms, for example "t-amp", "THD" etc. I am going to make clear the term "amplifier wattage" a bit more in this editorial. "Power" is one of the most basic terms describing amplifier functioning. However, it is often misunderstood. Several makers also in history have used this term in a perplexing way to hide the true performance.
A number of of the terms which amplifier producers publish regularly are confusing and do not inevitably offer a decent indication of the actual functioning of the amplifier. Let me now go ahead and describe the power rating of stereo amplifiers.
"Wattage" is from time to time also known as "Power" or "amplifier output power". To put it in a nutshell, "wattage" shows how high the amplifier can drive your speakers. The higher this number the louder your speakers. Depending on your application, you can go with a tiny amplifier offering only several watts or a larger one offering several hundred watts. Most home stereos only incorporate amps that have several watts power which regularly is sufficient for a small space. If you plan to shake your walls then you obviously wish to choose an amp that offers up to several hundred watts. For best audio quality, you may want to choose an amplifier that has bigger power than you need because most amplifiers are going to exhibit increasing distortion as the audio output power increases.
Power is either given as "Watts peak" which means the amp can produce short bursts of this amount of power or "Watts rms" which shows how much power the amplifier may deliver for a longer amount of time. In the past, manufacturers have regularly favored listing the "peak power". This number is bigger than the average or "rms" power. On the other hand, "peak power" can often be ambiguous as there is no norm showing the period of time that the amplifier has to be able to output this level of output power.
Music and voice is not uniform by way of loudness. Thus the peak power rating is still significant, although not as essential as the rms power rating. Ideally the amplifier is going to show both the rms and peak power spec. Having a large peak power spec is going to ensure adequate headroom for power peaks that are widespread in music signals. This is since at specific moments the signal will show peaks of power that by far exceed the average power of the signal.
Usually the impedance of the loudspeakers that you attach to the amplifier is going to determine how much power the amp can offer. Speaker impedance is measured in Ohms. Usually loudspeakers have an impedance between 4 and 8 Ohms. As a result of the limited amplifier supply voltage, the maximum output power will be half if you attach an 8-Ohm loudspeaker of the peak power which the amplifier can deliver to a 4-Ohm speaker. If the highest output power is not referenced to a speaker impedance, you should call the manufacturer. Typically a 4-Ohm speaker is used as a reference.
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