Hence, when you’re buying an amplifier, make sure that the speaker’s RMS is equal to or greater than that of the amplifier. Likewise, amplifiers have RMS and peak power ratings as well but they indicate the power output. Go beyond this threshold and you’ll definitely cause some irreparable damage to your speakers. Peak Power is essentially the point of no return. The latter lets you know what the absolute limit is in terms of how much power the speaker can handle. The former indicates how much power (in watts) a speaker can safely receive on a continuous basis. There are two main metrics that tell you about a speaker’s power handling: the Maximum RMS and Peak Power. If you go beyond this limit, you’ll risk heat damage to the speaker’s internal components. However, there’s actually a limit to how much power your speaker can handle. If you’re like me and you love blasting music out loud on a regular basis, then the more power the better. These will help you determine whether or not an amplifier is compatible with your current set up.Īmplifiers provide more power to speakers – that’s how they boost signals and make things louder. When you’re buying an amplifier you need to pay attention to a few important technical specs including power output, frequency response, and speaker sensitivity. Class D amplifiers, however, have the least signal purity out of all the aforementioned classes. Hence, there is no excess electricity left to be converted to heat. This is largely because they’re output transistors don’t retain any electricity when the unit is turned off. With class A/B amplifiers you get the best of both worlds: the signal purity of Class A with the power efficiency of Class B.Ĭlass D amplifiers have the highest efficiency (95%). This is due to the presence of biasing diodes that help to cancel it out. Class A/B amplifiers don’t have issues with distortion despite having a Class B chain in their circuits. However, there is one major downside to the way Class B amplifier circuits are set up: you’ll have to deal with a tiny amount of distortion.Ĭlass A/B circuits combine elements from Class A and Class B amplifiers. This drastically reduces the percentage of electricity that is wasted which in turn increases efficiency to 70%. As a result, a lot of Class A amplifiers tend to overheat with prolonged use.Ĭlass B amplifiers only conduct electricity half the time, when compared to Class A. The excess electricity is eventually converted to heat energy. Only a small percentage of this electricity will be utilized by speakers, which puts the efficiency of a typical Class A amplifier at an appalling 30%. ![]() On the other hand, there are two major drawbacks to this continuous conduction. The benefit of this is that it allows Class A amps to provide the purest signal path out of all. Where amplifiers are concerned, efficiency is a measure of how much Alternating Current (AC) a device can pass to another while consuming the least amount of Direct Current (DC).ĭue to differences in the circuitry, efficiency varies between each class of amplifier:īecause of the simple way in which their circuits are designed, Class A amplifiers conduct electricity 100% of the time. There are four main classes of amplifiers: A, B, A/B and D and the main distinguishing factor between them is efficiency. When you’re browsing through 4-channel amplifiers, you’ll come across talk of ‘classes’ but what exactly does it mean? In this section, I’m going to be talking about the factors you need to consider when you’re picking an amplifier, including a few important technical specs.ĭon’t worry, I’ll go easy on the jargon and break down everything into the simplest language. In order to buy a unit that suits your needs perfectly and is compatible with your existing car stereo set up, you need to know a little bit about amplifiers. Lastly, the amplifier was compact enough so that I had multiple mounting options.I liked the variable high-and low-pass filters as they allowed me to minimize the distortion in the sub-bass and upper-bass regions.The last thing I wanted was to blow out my speakers by cranking the volume too high. First of all, the RMS of 50 watts was perfect not too high and not too low.There were several things about this amplifier that strongly appealed to me: In the end, I chose the one that I thought had a bit more edge compared to others: the Kenwood KAC-M3004. ![]() The Best Overall 4-Channel Car Amp: Kenwood KAC-M3004Ĭhoosing my overall favorite was quite a difficult task, especially considering that all these amplifiers had many similarities. The Best Overall 4-Channel Car Amp: Kenwood KAC-M3004.
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