A SIMPLE Rule For Choosing An Amplifier | Ohms, Watts, & More

in this video you'll learn what to consider when choosing an amplifier to power your speakers or subwoofers it's important to choose an amplifier that's well suited to power your speakers for one this will ensure the best sound quality possible but it will also help protect your equipment choosing the wrong amplifier can put you at greater risk of causing damage to your speakers or the amplifier itself there are two factors that you'll want to consider when choosing an amplifier once you've already selected your speakers those two factors are impedance and power impedance is measured in ohms and it refers to the opposition a circuit has on the flow of electrical current the first step will be to find the nominal impedance for your speakers you can find the nominal impedance of your speakers on the manufacturer's website within the technical specifications if your plan is to power multiple speakers with a single amplifier channel it's a bit more complicated to find the total impedance of all those speakers if that's your situation you might find this video i made on calculating speaker impedance helpful the power rating for your speakers can also be found in the technical specs you'll probably find several power ratings peak power refers to the maximum short term power a speaker can handle without damage we're more concerned with how much power a speaker can handle over an extended period of time this is the continuous power rating of the speaker let's say i'm trying to find an amplifier to power two qsc e115 speakers i'll be looking for at least a two channel amplifier so that i can power the left speaker and right speaker separately we need to find an amplifier that can supply adequate power to the speakers at the speaker's nominal impedance rating which in this case is 8 ohms impedance and power are interrelated at 4 ohms the gxd4 is capable of supplying 600 watts of continuous power at 8 ohms it's only capable of supplying 400 watts let's look at the gxd8 which supplies 800 watts per channel at 8 ohms this is a better fit as it gives us the headroom to comfortably supply enough power to get the most out of our speakers choosing an amplifier that can supply too much power makes it possible to exceed the limitations of the speaker of course as you start to hear that speaker distortion you'd hopefully turn it down to keep your equipment safe on the other hand choosing an amp that can't supply enough power is actually more likely to cause damage with an underpowered amp you might have the tendency to keep turning it up and up and at a certain point that will only cause clipping the speaker won't get any louder but the waveform will become distorted which could cause the speaker to overheat the truth is there really isn't a simple rule for matching amplifiers to speakers any combination of equipment you get could lead to damage if improper gain structure is used my recommendation is to choose an amplifier that is capable of providing about twice the continuous power rating of the speaker remember a doubling of power is only a three decibel change this will allow the amplifier to provide adequate power to the speaker while maintaining some extra headroom to avoid the tendency to overdrive the input of the amplifier the best way to prevent damage and get the best sound quality possible is to choose speakers that are designed to provide adequate sound pressure level for the application at hand that way you won't have the tendency to turn up the speakers beyond their limitations for help with choosing the right speakers download the free loudspeaker technical specifications guide at audiouniversityonline.com speaker specs guide if you got value out of this video hit the like button and share the video with somebody else who would find it useful for more content like this subscribe to audio university on youtube and check out the website at audiouniversityonline.com thanks for watching

Channel: Audio University

Views: 109,388

Keywords: choosing amplifier, choosing amp for car speakers, choosing amp for speakers, choosing amp for subwoofer, choosing an amp, choosing amplifier for speakers, choosing amplifier for subwoofer, selecting amplifier for speakers, matching amplifier to speakers, matching amplifier to speakers wattage, matching speakers and amps, matching speakers and amplifiers, how to choose an amp, how to choose amplifier for speakers, peak power vs continuous power, how much power do speakers need

Id: 6B0OlQaD_i4

Length: 4min 20sec (260 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 10 2020