High Current Monoblocks

Hi Everyone.

I'm with Dodgealum - I get glazy too when I read all this tech stuff. But, I try to learn.

I read on another Forum that "headroom" can be described as the difference between RMS (continuous power) and dynamic (peak) power. Like, 100w RMS vs. 150w dynamic. He then went on to say that in some applications lower headroon is preferable and in other applications more headroom is better. This totally confused me.

Mike

I would followup on Mofimadness by saying that I have one of the Sanders Sound Magtech amps. It is stereo but has 500 watts into 8 ohms. I have never had such a powerful and clean sounding amp. There are mono block versions with 1600 watts into 8 ohms briefly before your mains are drained. I cannot imagine why anyone would ever need such power, however.

I kind of get it. Someone correct me where I'm off in my metaphor. The single most difficult task in the system is the transfer of electrical energy into mechanical energy at the speaker. The amp/speaker interface is critical as a poor match can absolutely ruin an otherwise fine system. The energy that it takes to move the speakers parts may vary over the spectrum of sound from high to low (at one point it may take very little energy to move them, while another may demand tremendous reserves from the amp). This can otherwise be seen in the impedence curve of the speakers in question (where it dips down low the amp will have to put out significantly more power). An amplifier with a specific amount of power to offer can deliver that power, or rather make that power available, in different ways. To make it simplistic for anyone to understand, lets say the demands of your speaker are that of a burning building that can go from a trickle of smoke to a raging fire and back again. Lets say the amps we compare both have 10 battalions of fire fighters to offer up, no more. A high current amp would have all ten battalions at the scene of the fire at all times, even if the fire were just smoldering. A different type of amp would only send a single battalion to that smoldering scene, and send the others there as needed and they would leave immediately back to their stations once their need was filled. Of course going to and from the station takes time, whereas the high-current version has all its resources right there at the site of the fire at all times. I guess this is also a metaphor for a Class A amplifier. Can someone explain to me in simplistic terms the distinction between a "high-current amp" and a Class A amp?

Let me clarify the 'current' needs of the DA-1.1 etc. First they have a very stable curve @ 6ohms with a brief dip to a little over 4ohms @ 150hz and below that a rise to about 10ohms. As speakers go this is very smooth and easy for most amps to handle. I've found that amplifiers with much less than 30amps don't give the dynamics that these speakers can produce, but more is not always better. Depending on the amp 60 amps may not sound any better than 100amps, there are just too many factors.

thanks,
Lou