Watts and power


Can somebody break it down in layman's terms for me? Why is it that sometimes an amp that has a high watt rating (like, say, a lot of class D amps do) don't seem to always have the balls that much lower rated A or AB amps do? I have heard some people say, "It's not the watts, it's the power supply." Are they talking about big honkin' toroidal transformers? I know opinions vary on a speaker like, say, Magnepans - Maggies love power, right? A lot of people caution against using class D amps to drive them and then will turn around and say that a receiver like the Outlaw RR2160 (rated at 110 watts into 8 ohms) drives Maggies really well! I'm not really asking about differences between Class D, A, or AB so much as I am asking about how can you tell the POWER an amp has from the specs? 
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Showing 4 responses by optimize

I am so tired on insufficient information from the manufacturers..

They only tell us power in wattage (in one or another way).
From school it is amps multiplying with voltage gives wattage.

Where we consumer only have wattage then we can not know much of each component the amp gives for example get 100 watts.

Is it 2 amp and 50 volts ?
OR
Is it 4 amp and 25 volts ?
OR
Something completely else?

Some speaker technology types benefits if the wattage consists of high amount of ampere.
But we will never know which amps that delivers a lot of ampere..

Just a another small factor to add to the list.. 🥰
Optimize, yes we do know what you are asking if say they give a spec into 8, 4 and 2 ohms which many do..
No they do not.
No manufacturer what I have seen have been given what ampere (current) spec into 8, 4 and 2 ohms.

Only wattage and maybe the distortion. We are in the dark of how much current (and voltage) there were when we got the power (wattage).

Internet know hows and reviewers say now and then. "The speaker X need a high current amplifier"..
How would they know?! They do not have any other specifications that we all get..
There is specific amplifier designs that are primarily designed to be current sources. So they can have relatively low wattage but for producing that wattage it gives high amount of current and low voltage..
Or are missing something here? Were is the ampere and the voltage in the specifications?
Thank you for your reply @audiozenology

Optimize,
  • P = v * I
  • P = v^2 / R
  • P = i^2 * R

If you know P and R, then you can calculate I and V.
But I could not really wrap my head around WHY the correct formulas could work to calculate I and V on a amplifier output.

Because that would suggest that ALL amplifiers with different operations classes, types of FET and wiring singel ended/Push pull. Gives the SAME constant and relationships so only from wattage and resistance you can get the I and V.

That is something I don’t believe is true at all!

And I think I found the missing link.. Why you think that we kan use those formulas on the output power for a amplifier!

The formulas above only works on:
Single Phase OR Three Phase Delta
https://www.chromalox.com/Resources%20and%20Support/calculators/ohms-law

That is logical when you measure on a constant like between different phase conductors in your home and I believe it is not applicable on the any given amplifier output.

But I can be wrong maybe any other more gifted than I could share a light on the subject. :)
Thanks all for your explanation of power and current!
Interesting link there with voltage/power paradigm. 😀