signal to noise ratio make a big diff??

[youngstunna 10+ year member]

i have a avionixx atx 800.2 and its signal to noise ratio is 90 or 85(everywhere i look it says its 90 or 85 //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif ) i was thinking about gettin a orion 1200d and its signal to noise ratio is only 80. i was wondering will the orion be that much louder? cause i remeber hearing a sony amp that had 600 watts rms with a low signal to noise ratio and a amp that had 200 watts rms with a higher signal to noise ratio was way louder

Click to read more...

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

i have a avionixx atx 800.2 and its signal to noise ratio is 90 or 85(everywhere i look it says its 90 or 85 //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif ) i was thinking about gettin a orion 1200d and its signal to noise ratio is only 80. i was wondering will the orion be that much louder? cause i remeber hearing a sony amp that had 600 watts rms with a low signal to noise ratio and a amp that had 200 watts rms with a higher signal to noise ratio was way louder

If I'm reading your post correctly....I think you are confused on what the signal to noise ratio is.

The signal to noise ratio has absolutely no bearing on how "loud" an amplifier will be. My guess as to your comparison of the Sony and the 200W amplifier is that either the Sony wasn't outputting anywhere near 600w RMS or the 200w RMS amplifier was outputting well over it's rated power.....or you listened to them in completely different setups in which the comparison is completely invalid.

But, the moral of the story is that the differences where either due to the actual power output, the settings or the setups in general and not related in any way, shape or form to the signal to noise ratio.

All the signal to noise ratio essentially tells you is how high the "noise floor" for the amplifier is. It is, as the term describes, the ratio of the signal strength to the noise created by the amplifier. In most cases with modern amplifiers, the signal to noise ratio is sufficient enough as to not cause any audible differences between amplifiers.

http://www.bcae1.com/sig2nois.htm

 

[gsxrjjordan 10+ year member]

I'm sorry, but I've got to throw some insight on to this thread.

I know this site caters to everyone from ultra-n00b to top level competitor, so you can't lay everything out all at once, but this is such an often-asked question that I believe it warrants a complete response.

As Squeak said, signal-to-nose ratio has nothing to do with gain (fancy word for how much amplification the amp can do, or "how loud it gets" in a given system), it has to do with how much gain you get for every decibel of noise... obviously, the higher the SnR the "better" your amp will sound.

The problem with the industry is that no one can decide how to measure signal to noise, and even though they have standards, some manufacturers straight up lie.

The complete answer is: yes it matters. With subwoofer amps, it matters a tiny bit. With a 4ch you're gonna drive your components with, it matters quite a bit more. I wouldn't buy one amp just because it's listed SnR is 1 or 2 db higher than another, but it should be one statistic out of many that give you a better idea of what you're buying. A rule of thumb I've used is to ask people that you respect, and that have a trained ear, which amps sound better than others; if you get a concensus from a few people in the know, you can probably bet it sounds good. Buying just based on published stats is very risky, imho.

 

[Thnking 10+ year member]

SNR isn't a factor you should be concerned with. Basically it's an inaudible difference.

It's also very hard to compare these numbers form amp to amp, because it's typically given for a specific power output through a specific frequency range into a specific load.

For a 20V peak to peak rail amp, a SNR of 66 would mean the ratio of signal to noise is 1 to 2000, not audible. For a SNR of 86 with the same amp, the ratio of signal to noise is 20,000, not audible. For a SNR of 46 there is still 1 to 200 ratio, which is still not audible.

But you will hear a lot of people telling you they have "trained/magic" ears. Really what it is are differences in processing circuitry, outputting different frequencies differently.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

SNR isn't a factor you should be concerned with. Basically it's an inaudible difference.

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/word.gif.64b12e39f936af3b4fff38a1c0bd0244.gif