Placementīefore you place its back to the wall, it’s worth looking at your stereo amp’s rear panel to see what options are available regarding connecting sources, extra speakers and future upgrades.Īll stereo amps have line level RCA inputs, which can be used for all the usual sources – music streamers, CD players and so on. That’s because an amplifier’s output has to double to match a 3dB increase in speaker sensitivity.īut numbers can only tell you so much, and the best test to gauge if components work well together is to use your ears and have a listen. Though you may be tempted to go for the most powerful amp you can afford, you’ll usually do better by buying a more sensitive speaker. An ideal amp would double its output as impedance halves so, though most won’t achieve it, the closer it gets the better. How to combine stereo and surround sound in one AV systemĪ better insight into an amp’s muscularity is to compare its power output into 8ohms with that into 4ohms.However, the electronic load of a speaker is far more varied than a simple resistor, so we’d be careful about judging the strength of an amplifier simply by the 8-ohm power figure. The standard way to measure an amplifier’s output is by connecting it to an 8-ohm resistor and measuring the power before distortion becomes too high. The sensitivity of a speaker, meanwhile, is a measure of how loud a speaker will go for a given input.

Impedance is a measure of how difficult the speaker is for the amplifier to drive. The speaker/amp partnership not only comes down to an amplifier’s power output (how many watts it can deliver to each channel of a music signal) but also impedance (measured in ohms) and sensitivity (dB). An amplifier’s partnership with stereo speakers is extremely important, and there are a few things worth considering to ensure they complement each other as well as Wensleydale cheese and wheat crackers.Įver scratched your head when faced with specs such as '75W into 8 ohms'? Allow us to explain.

Power amplifier diy