How much does SQ really play a role in amps?

[xmakeafistx 10+ year member]

Class D, Class A/B, etc.

What is the difference in sound? How does it play in a sound quality setup?

I know its a very general question, but I do not know much about anything sq related.

Is it worth investing a small fortune into an "sq" amp or will other cheaper options do the job?

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[BnGRacing 10+ year member]

It's worth it to invest in an SQ amp instead of buying the cheapest amp with the most power. A watt is not a watt...at least in the real world. The big difference between good & bad amps really comes down to how well they cope with clipping. A bad amp will sound nasty and grainy, a good amp will still sound loud and clean...like there's no distortion at all.

Other differences would be how noisy the amp is, how good the onboard processing is, and its reliability. A cheap amp will be noisy, have bad crossovers, will break, and will fall on its face when tasked with a reactive load (speaker).

 

[dipitydoo 10+ year member]

you're going to open up a can of worms here. if you like to read pages on end of 'discussions' regarding this topic, do a search.

 

[xmakeafistx 10+ year member]

Guess i'll have to look it up then.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

I agree with BnG. Yes, amps matter... When you start to push them to their ratings. At 1 W they will be similar. but power supply design, preamp features, voltage rail design, slew rate, etc. all vary and matter.

 

[xmakeafistx 10+ year member]

I mean I see some 200 dollar amplifiers could make an audible difference. But i've seen some go for insane amounts of money.. and at that point is it really worth it? Maybe with higher end equipment every detail is noticeable..

I mean I obviously know theres a difference between a ****** lower end pioneer amp, and like an American Acoustics amp, but where does it stop making a difference exactly?

 

[BnGRacing 10+ year member]

I mean I see some 200 dollar amplifiers could make an audible difference. But i've seen some go for insane amounts of money.. and at that point is it really worth it? Maybe with higher end equipment every detail is noticeable..
I mean I obviously know theres a difference between a ****** lower end pioneer amp, and like an American Acoustics amp, but where does it stop making a difference exactly?

A system has to work as a system. You don't buy a Ferrari and fill up on 87 nor would you buy a $1,000 amp to hook it up to your Dual headunit you bought w/a Walmart gift card.

With amps, it stops making a difference when two things happen; you use very high end & complicated processing and you have more headroom than you know what to do with. Take a guess what nearly every SQ system has? Expensive DSPs and enough power to run a small village.

 

[akheathen Premium Member]

well, the key here is "worth it" worht it, is basically what exactly you want. there is bootom of the barrel power, which someone will experienced will describe as "dirty power, like the directed 1200d. yah, it will "wang" out there, andnot really be clipping, or in the danger zone, but that doesn't really bother those who aren't even paying attention (and probably can't make out) to the words/mids/highs, and just concerned with getting loud and feeling/experiencing the bass. then there is the middle stuff, which will give you decen output and decernable bass reproduction, or even mid, whichever you are looking at, but sq testing/evaluation will point out the peaky noes being louder or quieter than others, or background noise, and then there is the high end...... this, is where you find the sound experience you never knew you never knew. basically, sounding so clean and realistic you would swear the music is being produced right from your head, like someone talking to you in a quiet room. the quiet points of music, like pauses, and silence, is just that- nothing you can hear. once you really know the difference, you can't un-know how pure it is. often represented as "studio", though many things labeled "studio quality" are just high-end mid range. i re-iterate- it's about what that perfact sound is worth to you that makes it "worth it" me- yah,. i take sq where i can get it, but mostly, i enjoy just keeping away from "dirty" power. in fact, i think my garage and living room setups are much cleaner than my truck, and i am still making improvements in sq there, just being cheap as possible....

 

[Joseph7195 10+ year member]

So, I was reading and i had to ask a question. At what point is distortion "audible"? I know, it's a very open ended question, i apologize for that. I see very very expensive amps with .1% distortion at 100 watts and a cheap amp that has 0.08% distortion at 100 watts. I am gonna do a search too, just in case it's too much to discuss again. I always wondered about this. I actually have time today to look around and find out

 

[akheathen Premium Member]

So, I was reading and i had to ask a question. At what point is distortion "audible"? I know, it's a very open ended question, i apologize for that. I see very very expensive amps with .1% distortion at 100 watts and a cheap amp that has 0.08% distortion at 100 watts. I am gonna do a search too, just in case it's too much to discuss again. I always wondered about this. I actually have time today to look around and find out

mostly depends on you, but if i would have to guess, i would say, i can detect distortion about 10%+ for bass, sooner for mids, but highs are tricky. at least i can tell when to turn it down to a safe level... and the total db that it occours makes a big azz difference. you can pick up 2%distortion @ 80db much sooner than you can tell 20% at 180db, lol

 

[BnGRacing 10+ year member]

So, I was reading and i had to ask a question. At what point is distortion "audible"? I know, it's a very open ended question, i apologize for that. I see very very expensive amps with .1% distortion at 100 watts and a cheap amp that has 0.08% distortion at 100 watts. I am gonna do a search too, just in case it's too much to discuss again. I always wondered about this. I actually have time today to look around and find out

There's a difference between THD, amp clipping, and signal to noise. Total Harmonic Distortion occurs in all amps, some just hide it much better than others. THD is when an amp plays 100hz, a harmonic of 50hz & 200hz are also reproduced. Nature of the beast really, but you can't tell in good amps. Now here's the kicker; CEA rates THD at 4ohms...not where the amp makes max power. THD goes up when you lower the impedance. In addition, an amp's S/N is rated @ 1w into a 4ohm load. If you're buying a 1w amp, that's fine, but what about 1000w @ 2ohm? Who the hell knows what number that is.

The reason some old-school amps and modern SQ amps look bad on paper is b/c newer ratings kinda act like a "curve" you'd get in school on a test. High end amps rate their power at some ridiculously low % of THD, like 0.004% and the S/N is at rated power and not 1 watt. Likewise, I haven't been able to find out if newer CEA ratings & tests are performed with all channels being driven. If they're not, which is a good possibility, then it just goes to show that some junk amps look better than they really are.

In addition, the onboard crossovers & EQs on amps are all bypassed for these tests and you'll never know if your amp is not making max power b/c the crossover network is distorting everything.

I hate specs. The industry standard is kind of a sham if you ask me.

 

[Shinju 10+ year member]

Wow! were to start, There are so many levels of SQ to talk about, lets take for example a daily driver sure easy to do driver placement is not really a big issue as well as imaging as long as it sounds good to you then that is SQ, There is also on the other hand Comp SQ we are talking about cars that are never driven that have thousands of hours into install, driver placement, imaging, processing, millions of hours tuning just for that half hour that the judge sits in your car and ciques your system and evaluates your soundstage, depth and other things.

SQ is not all about power and or amplifiers. YES this does play a role but a very VERY small one. I am running Budget MAXXSONIC 2011 Autotek amplifiers in a ROOKIE SQ build and I take home first, second and third place trophies.

There is a friend of mine using DD amplifiers and competes IASCA and USACI Amature with them, There was alot of folks doubting that DD and SQ does not go hand in hand. Well I can tell you his car was pretty **** amaing to listen too and again he had hours and hours of tuning and was also running some very nice drivers and a bit one!

This guy here in the link below is a local Pro competitor take a look at his build this is a car that never drives and takes first at pretty much every show he goes to in SQ.

This car is probably the best car I have ever heard in this industry for a pro class, and I like to use mikes car as an example because half of his gear is not even car audio but was customized to fit his applications and let me tell you it is very impressive to hear and look at.

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