A Close Look At The Term "Wattage" Of Class D Audio Amplifiers

Considering a number of the technical specs of today's power amps, one cannot help but be at a loss in trying to compare different types and technical jargon, including "t-amp", "THD" and so on. I am going to provide a brief summary of the output wattage spec in order to help you better comprehend the significance of this specification and how it relates to the functioning of an amplifier.

Some of the terms which amp producers show regularly are deceptive and do not inevitably give a good indication of the actual functioning of the amplifier. Let me now proceed and describe the power spec of audio amplifiers. The output wattage of the audio amplifiers is shown as "wattage". This describes how loud your amplifier may drive your speakers. Depending on your application, you can choose a small amp delivering only several watts or a larger one delivering several hundred watts. Most home radios only incorporate amplifiers which have a few watts power which typically is enough for a small space. If you intend to shake your walls then you clearly wish to opt for an amp that offers as much as a few hundred watts. Many amplifiers (visit their website on the subject of home audio amplifiers) will show increasing music distortion as output power increases. As a result, you want to pick an amplifier that offers higher output power than you will actually need. This is going to assure that you will never drive the amplifier into regions of high distortion. Various specs are going to present the power in "Watts peak" whilst others are going to exhibit "Watts rms". "Peak" means that the amp is able to provide the output power for a brief amount of time only while "Watts rms" means that the amp will constantly provide that level of power. In the past, vendors have frequently preferred showing the "peak power". This number is bigger than the average or "rms" power. On the other hand, "peak power" can often be ambiguous since there is no norm stating the amount of time that the amp must be able to output this amount of power. These days many amps will specify rms power that gives a better indication of the amplifier's true performance. On the other hand, please ensure that your amplifier has enough headroom to stay away from clipping of the audio. This is since at certain moments the signal will exhibit bursts of power that by far surpass the average output power of the signal.

Please notice that frequently the peak power of the amplifier is going to depend upon the impedance of your speakers which is usually between 4 and 8 Ohms. An audio amplifier that has a fixed internal supply voltage is going to have a maximum output voltage swing that is limited by that supply voltage. If you are driving an 8-Ohm speaker then the amplifier has to deliver two times the output voltage than whilst driving a 4-Ohm speaker in order to output the same amount of wattage. If the maximum output power is not referenced to a speaker impedance, you ought to contact the producer. Regularly a 4-Ohm speaker is used as a reference.