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If you have spent a good amount of money on a pair of good-quality loudspeakers, you want to be certain that you get an audio amplifier that will deliver excellent audio quality while meeting your budget. I will offer some pointers on the subject of audio amp devices to aid you make the perfect purchasing decision. It is tricky to pick the right audio amp as a consequence of the large number of types. All of these models have different specs. They are built on different technologies and are available in all kinds of shapes and sizes. This makes it tricky to make a decision which model to select. You don’t have to be a specialist. Just follow some easy guidelines and you should be satisfied with your amplifier. Amplifiers vary in their size and range from models that will take up a good part of your living room whilst several of the newest mini amplifier models are as small as a deck of cards. A large number of amplifiers are the size of a typical rack. This enables your amplifier to be stacked on top of your other audio equipment. There are some core amplifier technologies available. One technology is named "solid-state". Solid-state amps now make up for the majority of audio amps. In the past, tube amps have been popular. Even today tube amplifiers are still available. Tube amplifiers, however, have a rather high amount of harmonic distortion. Harmonic distortion describes how much the audio signal is degraded while being amplified. This expression is frequently used while evaluating the audio quality of amps. Harmonic distortion of tube amplifiers is often as high as 10%. Solid-state amplifiers will have less audio distortion. On the other hand, distortion will depend on the specific audio amplifier technology. In the past, for the most part "Class-A" and "Class-AB" amps were obtainable which are also called "analog amplifiers". While amps utilizing these technologies typically have low audio distortion, power efficiency is only 10% to 30%. Power efficiency refers to how much of the electrical power is really used to amplify the signal. The left over part is wasted as heat. An amp with low power efficiency will radiate the majority of its power as heat. In comparison, "Class-D" amplifiers which are also known as "digital amplifiers" have a power efficiency of generally 80 to 90%. This permits the amp and power supply to be made much smaller than analog amplifiers. The disadvantage is that many digital amplifiers have higher audio distortion than analog amplifiers though a number of of the most recent types make use of a feedback mechanism to reduce distortion to levels of 0.05% and less. When picking an amplifier, make sure that the output power is adequate to drive your loudspeakers. The needed power will be determined by how much power your speakers can handle as well as the size of your space where you will be listening. Speaker power handling is given as peak power which denotes the highest amount of power during short bursts whilst average power refers to how much power the speakers can handle continuously. If you have a relatively small listening environment then 20 to 50 Watts of power should be enough even though your loudspeaker might be rated for 100 Watts or more. Speakers though differ in their impedance and sensitivity. As a rule of thumb speakers with low impedance offer higher sensitivity. High-sensitivity speakers are easier to drive to high volume than low-sensitivity loudspeakers. Not all amps can drive any speaker impedance. Find out the impedance of your loudspeaker which is given in Ohms. Then take a look at your amplifier manual to make sure that your amplifier can drive this impedance. Additional vital parameters are the signal-to-noise ratio and frequency response which should be in the order of no less than 100 dB signal-to-noise ratio and 20 Hz to 20 kHz frequency response for high-quality amplifiers.
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You can get additional information regarding audio amplifier technologies and mini amplifier products at Amphony's website.
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