Amplifier Input Impedance

02-11-14: Bombaywalla
How come Almarg hasn't spotted this thread as yet?? ;-)

02-11-14: Jmcgrogan2
Even the great and powerful Al needs a little vacation time every now and then. ;)

:-). Thanks, guys. No vacation time needed, though, as I'm always on vacation (i.e., happily retired).

Actually, I had spotted the thread. But having never designed an audio power amplifier, I can't speak knowledgeably about what the tradeoffs would be if a solid state one were designed with a high input impedance. Certainly it's readily doable, but I don't have a good feel for what the inevitable tradeoffs would be.

In addition to those tradeoffs, of course, as John and others have noted I don't doubt that in many cases a significant factor is a lack of motivation to provide compatibility with tube preamps.

Best regards,
-- Al

Input impedance has nothing to do with gain.

You can have a high input impedance on a solid state amp by using FET devices at the input.

Large solid state amps with a low input impedance often do have a lot of gain as they are designed for use with loudspeakers that need a lot of power. You need gain for that- 30 db might barely be enough. Conversely if you are driving a horn speaker you don't need nearly so much gain so many SETs don't have all that much- sometimes 15 db is plenty.

So there is a rough correlation but it is not based on input impedance => gain.

OK. So are not some loudspeakers designed with very low impedences so that they will audition better because they are louder? (and I understand that this is not the same as sensitivity.) Does that not relate to input impedence in amplifiers?

I'm not arguing with an audio engineer--just asking?

If I remember correctly, some years ago Mr. Wilson in an article in the Absolute Sound reported that there were some advantages to using low impedance DC coupled components in audio.

http://www.audioholics.com/audio-amplif

The above site agrees with some above comments from Bombaywalla and others. To summarize, according to the source, high input impedence in SS causes high voltage gain which in turn causes noise. It can also cause bandwidth to decrease. And finally it can introduce DC offset.

My head is still spinning from trying to absorb what I read in 15 websites which destroyed my misconceptions.
But apparently high input impedences can cause more harm than good.