Input needed. class AB or D for subs.

[asaner85 10+ year member]

If you want a class A/B for your subwoofers...there's nothing wrong with that as long as you are prepared to deal with their relatively lower efficiency.
But don't switch expecting there to be some dramatic increase in sound quality....because there won't be any (due directly to the amplifier topology).

Gotcha!

Thanks for the input!

 

[phantom240 5,000+ posts]

In all honesty, most, if any would notice a difference when powering a subwoofer... but when it comes to highs/mids I would go with either an A/B or a class A (iirc, class A is the less efficient, while the class B is the mor efficient, less SQ oriented right?)

 

[mattmcss 10+ year member]

class T ?

 

[Q&A 10+ year member]

Check out the class AB amp in this thread.

http://www.deathbydb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=146

How many amps do you think it would draw?

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

In all honesty, most, if any would notice a difference when powering a subwoofer... but when it comes to highs/mids I would go with either an A/B or a class A (iirc, class A is the less efficient, while the class B is the mor efficient, less SQ oriented right?)

True pure class A amplifiers (extremely rare for car audio...only a handful of companies have ever produced them) are horribly inefficient.....they have a maximum theoretical efficiency of 25%....

Class A/B, in theory, isn't as "pure" in output due to things like crossover distortion.

But in all reality, you will not hear a difference between any of them (including a class D) due directly to their topology. If the noise, power, frequency response and distortion are all close enough to be inaudibly different....you won't hear a difference between them.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

Check out the class AB amp in this thread.http://www.deathbydb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=146

How many amps do you think it would draw?

Well, I'm not going to read that whole thread to see if it's efficiency, true power output or the voltage level to obtain that specific output was ever mentioned....but just to pull a number out of the air, lets say it's 60% efficient at full power output @ 13.8V, and that it doesn't output even a hair over 3kw.

First, we need to find the total power consumption of the amplifier, so we divide the power output by the efficiency;

3000/.6 = 5000w of total power input.

Now, we divide the total power input by the voltage level of the power input, which is 13.8V in our nice little hypothetical world;

5000/13.8 = 362.32A

So..to output 3kw with 60% efficiency on a 13.8V power source, the amplifier would need to draw just a tad over 362A

It's actual current draw would completely depend on it's actual power output, voltage input, and it's actual efficiency. But you can replace my "hypothetical" numbers with real world numbers, and figure it out on your own once those are known.

 

[Q&A 10+ year member]

Cool, thanks man. That is just the kind of answer I was looking for. Thanks for the help.