When you are ready to order brand-new wireless loudspeakers, you might be wondering how efficiently your cordless loudspeakers function. I am going to make clear exactly what the term “power efficiency” stands for plus why you must take a closer look at this figure throughout your selection of brand new wireless speakers.
A number of issues are caused by wireless loudspeakers that have low power efficiency: Cordless loudspeakers that have low efficiency will squander some power. It’s smart to make note of the added energy expense when choosing between a high- and low-efficiency product. The squandered power is dissipated by the cordless speakers as heat. Heat doesn’t radiate effectively from little surfaces. Consequently low-efficiency cordless loudspeakers need to use heat sinks. These heat sinks consume a reasonable amount of room and make the wireless speakers bulky and heavy. Further, they add to the price of the cordless speakers. Low-efficiency wireless speakers additionally need a good amount of circulation around the wireless loudspeakers. Consequently they cannot be put in close spaces or inside air-tight enclosures. Since low-efficiency loudspeakers for outdoors are going to provide just a small fraction of the energy consumed by the amp as usable audio power, the amplifier needs a bigger power supply than high-efficiency versions causing more expensive. Further more, the thermal stress on the circuit board elements as well as amplifier materials is more severe and could lessen the reliability. The power efficiency is displayed as a percentage in the wireless speakers data sheet. Class-A amplifiers are amongst the least efficient and offer a efficiency of around 25% only. In contrast, switching amps, also called “Class-D” amplifiers offer efficiencies up to 98%. The larger the efficiency figure, the less the amount of power squandered as heat. A 100-Watt amplifier with a 50% efficiency would have an energy usage of 200 W.
Having said that, there are some things to notice about power efficiency. Firstly, this figure will depend on on the amount of energy that the amp is providing. Given that each amplifier is going to require a certain amount of energy, irrespective of the amount of power the amplifier delivers to the speakers, the amplifier efficiency is higher the more energy the amp delivers and is usually specified for the maximum power the amp can handle.
In order to determine the power efficiency, the audio power that is consumed by a power resistor that is attached to the amp is divided by the overall energy the amp uses whilst being fed a constant sine wave signal. To have a complete power efficiency profile, the audio power of the amplifier is swept between several values. At every value the efficiency is tested and then plotted onto a chart. Whilst switching (Class-D) amplifiers have among the largest power efficiency, they have a tendency to possess higher audio distortion than analog audio amplifiers and smaller signal-to-noise ratio. Therefore you are going to need to weigh the dimensions of the wireless loudspeakers against the audio fidelity. Even so, the newest cordless speakers that use switching-mode audio amplifiers, just like Class-T amplifiers, provide audio fidelity that comes close to that of low-efficiency analog amplifiers and can be built ultra small and lightweight.
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