How Does Amplifier Energy Efficiency Affect Fidelity?

I will look at the definition of "power efficiency" which shows you exactly how much

power audio amplifiers squander to guide you pick an amplifier.

A fairly high amount of power is dissipated as heat when you get a low-efficiency amplifier. This may result in a few issues: Low-efficiency amplifiers are going to squander a certain amount of power as heat and so are more costly to run when compared with high-efficiency types because of the larger power usage. Amps with lower efficiency normally have various heat sinks in order to help dissipate the squandered power. These heat sinks consume a good amount of room and make the amp bulky and heavy. Further more, they add to the expense of the amplifier. Amps that have low efficiency cannot be placed in tight spaces or inside sealed enclosures given that they need a good amount of circulation.

Amplifiers with low efficiency require a larger power supply to output the identical amount of audio power as high-efficiency products. Additionally, the thermal stress on the circuit board elements and amp materials is more severe and could reduce the reliability.

When trying to find an amp, you'll find the efficiency in the data sheet. This figure is normally listed as a percentage. Class-A amps are amongst the least efficient and provide a efficiency close to 25% only. In comparison, switching amps, also known as "Class-D" amplifiers deliver efficiencies of up to 98%. From the efficiency percentage you can work out the amount of power the amp is going to squander. An amp with a 50% efficiency will squander half of the consumed power. An amp with 90% efficiency is going to waste 10%.

However, there are a few things to notice about power efficiency. First of all, this figure is dependent on the amount of power that the amp is providing. Each audio amp is going to consume a certain amount of energy regardless of whether or not it supplies any power to the speaker. That is why the lower the power the amplifier provides, the lower the power efficiency. As a result audio makers generally specify the efficiency for the greatest audio power that the amplifier can deliver.

The measurement setup of amp efficiency employs a power resistor that is connected to the amp. The amp is being fed a constant-envelope sine-wave tone. After that the power absorbed by the resistor is tested and divided by the energy the amplifier uses. Given that the efficiency depends upon the audio power, typically the output power is swept and an efficiency curve produced which will display the amp efficiency for every level of output power.

Whilst switching (Class-D) amplifiers possess amongst the greatest efficiency, they tend to possess larger music distortion than analog music amps and lower signal-to-noise ratio. Consequently you are going to have to weigh the dimensions of the amp against the audio fidelity. However, digital amps have come a long way and are offering improved audio fidelity than in the past. Class-T amplifiers come close to the audio fidelity of analog amps. Subsequently picking a switching amplifier with good music fidelity is now possible.

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