So I've been asked by one of our customers to explain why on earth we should or he or
she should buy a separate amplifier and processor or amplifier and preamp rather
than a complete integrated amplifier that has the preamp and amp in one box or a
receiver that has everything. The processor preamp,
amplifier in one box. So basically there's a few reasons that we
recommend doing that to get the best performance from your system.
The first is with a modern home theater processor or receiver,
there is a lot of digital circuitry in those systems. Those digital circuits
produce noise and that noise inevitably, no matter how well designed,
at some small level, is going to get into the
amplifier section. If everything is driven from a common power supply and is all
in the same chassis or the same enclosure, which is exactly what you had
with a receiver. Once you split the amplifier from that,
even though you're running external cables, you isolate the power amplifier
by being on its own from that noise, from that potential to interfere with the
signal to the amplifier. It also has its own enclosure,
so it's immune to any radiated noise that may be coming through the air.
So that's one reason why there's a benefit. The other reason,
and I think the bigger reason, is that if you think about a typical home
theater receiver, you've got tons of circuitry. You've got an amazing amount
of complex electronics inside that box and they're all powered by, usually,
one power transformer. Now, that power supply to fit into the box
with all those other electronics and all those multitude of amp channels,
we're seeing now receivers with 11 amplifier channels in them.
They all have to share that common power supply and what will happen inevitably is
that some compromise has to be made to actually fit all that stuff in the box.
And the biggest components in any piece of electronics, like a receiver,
is the power supply. Particularly if it uses a traditional
transformer and capacitor rectifier power supply configuration.
So what does that mean? Why do I care? So the amps are in the same box and they
share that power supply. Well, that power supply usually will not
be overbuilt, and by overbuilt, I mean it's bigger than it needs to be so
that you can have dynamic headroom. Which means the amplifier can exceed its
maximum power specifications for short periods of time. When you have an external
power amplifier, that power supply has been designed and dedicated just to the
amplifier section itself. It's not sharing power with the rest
of the components. So what happens is that you can get better dynamic headroom
in most situations with that external amplifier. Now, if I don't listen
very loud, why do I care about that? Well, if you think about let's say movie
program material, you can have it a very comfortable listening level.
You can hear the dialogue well and as we know, in action movies and other films
like that, you can have a sudden explosion or a gunshot or something that
instantaneously requires in some cases 10 or 20 times the amplifier power then the
vocal tract that you were just listening to, or the voice track.
So what happens is that when those dynamics are reproduced accurately,
because you have that extra power on-demand on top for short periods
of time, it's clean, it's clear, and it frightens you,
and that's exactly what it should do. The movie mixers and producers have made
those effects louder so they startle you. So they get an emotional response
from you. If you have a system where you can't have that clean power available
because the power supply can't deliver more than the rated amplifier power,
the dynamics are going to be squashed. That means that special effect isn't
as impressive, it's not as scary, you don't have the same
emotional reaction, and it's just not as fun to listen to. So that's one reason why
we recommend in most systems beyond the certain level that if you can afford it,
a separate power amplifier is a very good idea to get that clean dynamic power.
Thank you.