If you have spent a good deal of cash on a pair of good-quality speakers, you want to be sure that you get an audio amplifier that will deliver brilliant audio quality while meeting your budget. I will provide a few pointers about audio amp products to aid you make the correct buying decision.

There is a variety of different audio amplifiers available that all differ in their specifications, shape and size. By following some simple suggestions, you will be able to select the type that best meets your application and budget.

Amplifiers differ in their size and range from types that will take up a good part of your living room whilst a few of the latest mini amplifier models are as tiny as a deck of cards. A big number of amplifiers are the size of a standard rack. This allows your amplifier to be stacked on top of your other audio devices.

There are a number of core amplifier technologies available. One technology is referred to as “solid-state”. Solid-state amps now account for the bulk of audio amplifiers. In the past, tube amplifiers have been popular. Even today tube amplifiers are still obtainable. Unfortunately, tube amplifiers have quite high audio distortion which describes how much the audio signal is degraded by the amp.

An audio distortion of up to 10% is normal for tube amplifiers while solid-state amps have lower audio distortion depending on the specific technology. In the past, typically “Class-A” and “Class-AB” amps were available which are also called “analog amplifiers”. This technology provides relatively small audio distortion. On the other hand, the power efficiency is merely 10 to 30%. Power efficiency refers to how much of the electrical power is actually used to amplify the signal. The remaining part is wasted as heat. An amplifier with low power efficiency will radiate the majority of its power as heat.

Another technology is known as “Class-D”. This technology offers much greater power efficiency than analog amplifiers, usually around 80 to 90%. “Class-D” amplifiers are also named “digital amplifiers”. The disadvantage is that many digital amps have larger audio distortion than analog amplifiers though some of the latest models make use of a feedback mechanism to reduce distortion to levels of 0.05% and lower.

Your amp should deliver adequate power to drive your speakers. The amount of power will depend on the power handling rating of your speakers. An additional factor is the size of your space. Loudspeaker power handling is given as peak power which denotes the utmost amount of power during short bursts whilst average power refers to how much power the loudspeakers can tolerate constantly.

In a small listening setting, you may not need to drive your speakers to their rated value. 20 to 40 Watts of power would most likely be sufficient. Note however that loudspeakers vary in their sensitivity. Typically a low-impedance loudspeaker will be less difficult to drive to high volume than a high-impedance speaker. Check your amplifier manual to ensure that your amplifier can drive your loudspeaker impedance.

Additional significant parameters are the signal-to-noise ratio and frequency response which should be in the order of at least 100 dB signal-to-noise ratio and 20 Hz to 20 kHz frequency response for high-quality amplifiers.

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