looking at amp specs, tying to understand them

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i am writeing this to try and help people understand what the specs of there amps mean.

i'm not a expert on amps but i know enough to write this.

when chooseing a amp theres many thing to look at like class a/b or class d and if you need a 2ch, 4ch or mono amp it go's on and on.

....so here it go's.... (in random order)

you will need to know if you need a class a/b. class d ect ect.

they are many types of class's like a, b, , c, a/b, d, t, x but the one's you see more in car audio is a/b and d. now there are more and more class t amps comming out because the price to build them are going down.

CLASS A: these amps have an output device that never turns off, so they are always conducting current. and known to be more linear (this means it will sound better then most amps but this is only in theory)

now because the output never turns off they are very inefficient which in turns

cause heat.on a side note class a amp were the first type of amps.

CLASS B: these amps were built in place of class a to inprove there efficiency.

most techs callthis type of amp (push-pull) because of the fact they have 2 output devices. one positive and one negative side of the waveform.

this makes the amp turn off the output device when there is no signal to the amp, so helping the heat issue of the class a amp.but the drawback of these amps is the distortionat the point when the waveform is handed over to the output device with opposite polarity. at low levels the distotion will be audible.

CLASS A/B: this type of amps combines the class a and class b to help pervent the drawbacks of each amp.it will conduct current like a class a at low levels, but as it goes up it starts to act like a class bamp.

so this is the reason why you see more class a/b amps in car audio.

CLASS C: i'm not going to get into class c because we dont see this type of amps in car audio.

CLASS D: these amps are known as switching amplifier or a digital amplifier. although it may appear digetal, these amps are NOT. because of the pulse are done by analog. these amps are more efficient because there either completely on or completely off. with neither of them producing very much power.

there is also class t amps but im going to get into that right now. (maybe later)

the ones to look for is class a/b and class d.

class a/b are uselly for your highs/mids and the class d is for your subs. but class a/b are known to sound better then class d on subs.

SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO: these signals are rated in decibels (db) and the higher the db the better.this measurement is the difference betweenthe noise floor and the refernce level which is different from manufactures. but the important thing is a value of around 100db is good.

TOTAL HARMONIC DISTORTION (THD): this is the distortion made by the amp because all amps are not perfectly linear. the thing to look for is a THD around .5%.

so anything below that will be better.

DAMPING FACTOR: the higher the DF the better, it will help pervent hangover.

hangover is when the subs cone moves up and comes back down but the cone will vibrate tell it reaches full rest. (not good for SQ)

this can make the sound of the sub sound booming.

so anything around 150 is good.

this is all im going to write right now i will be back with more...

hope this helps a few people out understanding what to look at when your looking at your spec sheet of your amp.

jamie