a techincal question about amps

[95Prober 10+ year member]

hi guys

when looking over my spec sheets, i noticed for example:

: Damping Factor > 700

im wondering, what does damping factor mean, and is the higher or lower number a better spec ??

thx

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[thylantyr 10+ year member]

Here's the formula.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damping_factor

Some argue that a DF of 10 is good enough to drive a speaker well. Marketing

people will tell you that DF should be thousands, millions or billions, lol.

A good solid state amplifier will have at least DF = 100.

Some tube amps can have low DF.

From wiki "Nelson Pass made a case to be for a loudspeaker system with zero electrical damping."

lol ..

 

[95Prober 10+ year member]

Here's the formula.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damping_factor

Some argue that a DF of 10 is good enough to drive a speaker well. Marketing

people will tell you that DF should be thousands, millions or billions, lol.

A good solid state amplifier will have at least DF = 100.

Some tube amps can have low DF.

so in the case of a d-class mono amp, is this spec decent: Damping Factor > 700

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

I actually just went partially over this in another thread;

http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2808283&postcount=92

You want the damping factor to be above a certain value. But going beyond that yields nothing beneficial. DF isn't a spec where higher is always better. Just as with slew rate, there comes a point in which going any higher doesn't yield any audible difference. This point is typically considered to be 20. So if the amp has a DF of >20, then it has adequate damping and there will be no audible effects.

Really, the only time damping factor would be a remote consideration is for a tube amplifier, which have very high (comparatively) output impedance. Most any solid state amp will have more than adequate enough damping.