effiiency for an amp (Class D)

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

DF shouldn't be a very big reason to choose an amp. Most are rated @ 4ohm anyway, so....

 

[vetkilr 10+ year member]

The worse the Dampin factor the more blended and muddy the sound will sound.

The higher the Dampin Factor the clearer each note and crisper and more seperated each note will sound.

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

I guess SQ means nothin over 110-120 decibels then??
My MD2 at .5 had no Dampin Factor left and was Muddy and I had plenty of power goin to it...........and my car is far from a SPL car.............for now.

Then that's a problem with the amplifier's output impedance //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[vetkilr 10+ year member]

DF shouldn't be a very big reason to choose an amp. Most are rated @ 4ohm anyway, so....

No but if you start low and then start cutting the amp down ohms wise from4 to 2 to 1 to .5 now the DF becomes important cause it too has been cut and now the amp will sound crappy.

 

[vetkilr 10+ year member]

Then that's a problem with the amplifier's output impedance //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

LOL to a point........would be fine at 4/2/or maybe even 1 ohm:naughty:

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

For audio power amplifiers this source impedance Zsource (also: output impedance) is generally smaller than 0.1 Ω (ohms), and can be seen from the point of view of the loudspeaker as a near short-circuit. This low impedance very rapidly dampsany unwanted cone movements induced by the mechanical resonance of the speaker, and acts as a very effective 'brake' on the speaker (just as a short circuit across the terminals of a generator will make it very hard to turn).

"Generally" may be too much of an assumption //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[RumbleNTheTrunk 10+ year member]

i hear this mmats 3000.1 is a pretty efficient amp?//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/naughty.gif.94359f346c0f1259df8038d60b41863e.gif

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

http://www.audiogroupforum.com/csforum/showthread.php?t=1030&highlight=Damping+Factor

http://www.audiogroupforum.com/csforum/showthread.php?t=38528&highlight=Damping+Factor

Nah, the change won't be big enough to be audible; hell, it's barely measurable.
A higher damping factor is exactly equivalent to increasing your driver's Qes, and the Q of drivers varies fairly widely even among units in the same production run.

The difference of a "damping factor" of 100 and 1000 at 2 ohms is a whopping 0.018 ohms; you can get bigger differences in that by tightening your speaker connections; that's also equivalent to 5 feet of 12 gauge speaker wire.

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

LOL from that thread.

About the only people I've ever seen claim that slew rate and damping factor are important specs in an audio amplifier are salesman, and markeneers, as RC calls them, and people who have long been seduced by overpriced placebo effects.
You would have to have an extraordinarily AWFUL amplifier to ever have them become an issue.

If we wanted to test and see if slew rate actually made an audible difference, then we'd have to test amplifiers with the same frequency response characteristics; since we don't want to hear a frequency response difference and make the foolish mistake of thinking that it's slew rate.

Big DF numbers also become pretty hilarious when you figure the speaker wire into the equation. It just doesn't mean a whole lot at all. The amount necessary is a lot lower than most marketing departments or salesman would like you to believe.

It's funny how many people claim to hear something which they alleged was caused by X, yet given conditions where that is the SOLE variable (which is the ONLY way to infer causation), in true experimental conditions, they couldn't hear it to save their lives.

Why is that? Because what they heard isn't what they thought it was. Sadly, too many have far more ego than they do reasoning ability, and they choose to remain arrogant and ignorant, rather than be humble and understand.

Oh well...

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second willfully preferred.

- George Bancroft

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

http://www.audiogroupforum.com/csforum/showthread.php?t=5944&highlight=Damping+Factor

my favorite descriptive term is "this amp exibited AUTHORITY"--------any amp can have detail, warmth, presence, taughtness, depth, texture, smoothness and even cone control------ but it really takes an exceptional amp to drive the speaker with authority----------authority---------hummmmm------now thats a term you can really nail down----------perhaps we could add it to the standard amp specs by ranking the level of authority---------at the low end of the scale we could have "private" and at the top of the scale we could have 5 star generals---------i would personally feel that at least a sergeant would be required for daily listening, a captain for competition and a real audiophile would need at least a general---------- for that really exceptional amp we could actually have "commander in chief"--------of course the theoretically perfect amp would simply be a "dictator".................RC

 

[vetkilr 10+ year member]

Higher dampin factor is hard to hear but the lower DFs are alot easier forsure...............lol on some of that stuff from those links forsure.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

ExplanationIn loudspeaker systems, damping factor describes the ability of the amplifier to control undesirable movement of the speaker cone near the resonant frequency of the speaker system A speaker diaphragm has mass, and the surround has stiffness. Together these form a resonant system and the cone may resonate in response to short audio pulses.

A high damping factor indicates that an amplifier will have greater control over the movement of the speaker cone, particularly in the bass region where the resonant frequency of the speaker system will lie. This damping gives a "tight bass" sound from the sound system.

God that's a horrible explaination.

The damping factor is simply the ratio of output impedance to input impedance. If this ratio happens to be extremely low (i.e. less than ~20), then it can cause changes in the frequency response (tubes amps, for example, exhibit this). However, if the damping factor is higher than ~20, then no audible differences will be heard.

An aubible difference between a DF of 50 and a DF of 2100 doesn't exist.

Basically just about any non-tube amplifier will have no issues with damping factor.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

The worse the Dampin factor the more blended and muddy the sound will sound.The higher the Dampin Factor the clearer each note and crisper and more seperated each note will sound.

Incorrect.

Damping factor has a level of audibility. Once the DF has surpassed this level (of about 20, though some state it's as low as 10) of audibility, no audible differences will be heard.