Investigating a few of the technical specs of today's audio amps, one cannot help but be at a loss in attempting to compare different models as well as terms, including "t-amp", "THD" and so on. In this editorial, I am going to have a closer look at one of the most fundamental of these terms: "amplifier output power". This term is also called "wattage".

Amplifier specifications are from time to time difficult to decipher since they are not fully standardized. Therefore it may be tricky to discover the true functioning of the amp only by investigating the specifications. One decent method however is to do a listening test ahead of paying for your amplifier. During this trial you ideally wish to set up the amplifier in a comparable setting as your use. Next I am going to present several details in relation to "amplifier power". This rating is often misunderstood. It is vital to look quite closely at how the maker publishes this rating.

"Power" describes how loud your amplifier can drive your speakers. You want to pick the amp wattage based on how big your listening space is. For best audio quality, you might want to go with an amplifier that has bigger power than you require as many amps will exhibit rising distortion as the music output power increases.

A few specifications will provide the power in "Watts peak" whilst others will publish "Watts rms". "Peak" means that the amp is able to deliver the wattage for a short period of time only whilst "Watts rms" means that the audio amplifier will continuously provide that amount of power. The peak specification has been to some extent abused by manufacturers stating enormous peak audio power whilst their amps are actually built with small power supplies unable to handle more than just several watts rms power.

Music and voice is not constant by way of volume. As such the peak power rating is nonetheless significant, although not as significant as the rms power rating. Ideally the amplifier will publish both the rms and peak power spec. Having a large peak power rating is going to ensure sufficient headroom for music peaks that are widespread in audio signals. The main reason is that audio signals are going to have short bursts of high power which the amp has to handle. Rms power is measured with a constant sine wave that hardly compares with a music signal regarding the power envelope. Please notice that frequently the peak power of the amp is going to depend on the impedance of your loudspeakers which is commonly between 4 and 8 Ohms. Because of the limited amplifier supply voltage, the largest output power is going to be half when you attach an 8-Ohm loudspeaker of the peak power that the amp may deliver to a 4-Ohm loudspeaker. Therefore often largest output power is shown for a specific speaker impedance.

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