Monday, 24 August 2020

A Guide to how Speakers and Amplifiers work together

 

Engine capacity Vs Curb Weight has to go hand-in-hand as we know in automotives”

 

Here it’s the Amplifiers Versus Speakers that makes it simple to understand right?

 

But let’s see how much technical we can travel through this to get it right for our understanding!

 

It is highly important to understand this, while we graduate to use this set up even as an amateur music lover or audio fanatic!

 

First things first: Impedance, Power handling and Sensitivity

 

Impedance of Amplifiers and speakers are mentioned in Ohms between 4 to 8 Ω. Unless your Amplifier and Speaker are down to these ranges it’s not recommended to drive them at higher volume levels which could result in failure of your Amp or Speaker!

 

Power handling is usually mentioned in wattage and some do not mention the peak power of the speaker but it’s better to go by the RMS / nominal power output of your Amplifier and your speaker

 

Monoblock Stereo Power Amplifier India | Power in RMS mentioned is the Root Mean Square, alright I mean the effective value of sound waves delivered whereas peak power is utilizing incoming voltage to its maximum capacity possible towards the sound waves which may not be as natural or clear as heard from the actual recording. While some people may still love the ground shaking or heart hitting powerful bass and shrills it’s not often advisable or acceptable to the majority out there.

 

Therefore, the Wattage output of Amplifier cannot stand at 50Watts per channel and we end up hooking a 150 watt per channel speaker set up to it just because we liked that speaker and couldn’t upgrade to a better Integrated amp or processor which supports its actual power.

 

Sensitivity is usually looked by us independently but we should ideally take it together with the overall frequency response range in Kilohertz that usually ranges from 20 Hz to 22,000 kHz. Sensitivity means how easily an amplifier can drive the speakers. Low sensitivity speakers need bigger amps as higher sensitivity ones need low amplifiers. Anything above 90 dB is good enough for home usage.

 

Some Knowledge on Speakers and Amplifiers...

 

Speakers:

Low, mid and high frequency ranges are catered by various combination of the drivers. There are several driver variants to choose from and each one has its unique characteristics utilized by an engineer.

 

While not missing out on the above specifications we may choose from a dynamic speaker like the two-way/three-way bookshelf or floor standing speakers or electrostatic ones with lower distortion trends, ribbon, bi-polar, or horn-built speakers which are a little more efficient in nature.

 

Amplifiers:

While frequencies are similar for our knowledge here the amplifiers used in building subwoofers or speakers or even externally used Stereo or multi-channel amplifiers are classified into A, B, D, G, H and A/B.

 

Dedicated transformers for separate channels, high-end monoblock, vacuum tubes, transistors, Ultrasonic, Wide-band, and high gain electronic amplifiers are some variants in build classification. Each has its unified response ranges but from sound perspectives they may have minor differences while the high-end ones carefully built can show a major difference in terms of soundstage and definition of each frequency reproduced.

 

Integrated Amplifiers can be a readymade option for those who want limited components yet a great amplification and power output for their good to great sounding speakers as they can supply enough power to the speakers

 

While some may use an excellent processor and amplifier built in their high end so called AVR and be happy with it and as long as that works for their needs it is still okay.

 

Conclusion:

So, squeezing all of these in a nutshell, an Amplifier should carry the perfect sound signals and hand it over to Speakers at any given volume level with ease and without losing the timbre of the sound.

 

Have a great sound!

 

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