I've heard it said time and again that "highend" amps such as Rockford, MTX, Kicker, JL, etc. are underrated in their power ratings and more often than not give you what they're rated at. But I read somewhere that no amp is and have never been 100% eficient. Class AB amps at most are 60-70% efficient with the remaining 30-40% or so being dissipated as heat. I would like to know are we all part of a great con game? whose telling the truth? Am I getting what I paid for? Does 1000watts RMS bridged on this amp means 1000w or 700w? I am thinking of purchasing one but don't want to make a bad investment.
The efficiency of an amplifier has nothing to do with the RMS rating of the amplifier. It is true that no amplifiers are 100% efficient. The efficiency of the amplifier is calculated by how much power output it has compared to how much power it actually uses to create that output power. The RMS rating is just a measurement of the output power with no consideration of the amount of power that is needed to create that output power. Most of the high-end amplifiers are properly rated. If you see power ratings that refer to peak power, it is a little misleading. The true power of an amplifier is the RMS rating. It stands for "root means squared" but is the effective power that you hear, often referred to as the true power. It is calculated by taking the peak power and multiplying it by .707, which is always less than the peak power. When the rating of an amplifier is calculated they use a sine wave at a single frequency and it has a positive peak and a negative peak. If the power is calculated using both peaks it is called the "peak to peak" power rating. When it is calculated using only one peak it is called the "peak" power rating.
The big "con" in all of this happens when manufacturers use the "peak" power ratings instead of the "RMS" power ratings because it makes people think that the amplifier has more power when it really doesn't. Most people have no idea there is a difference in the "peak" power or the "RMS" power. It is a deceptive way of making people think that they are getting a more powerful amplifier. But none of this is related to the efficiency of the amplifier. It is theoretically impossible to make anything electronic that is 100% efficient. It always takes more power on the input than it does for the output power of anything.
I hope this answered your question, if you have any other questions feel free to ask them just by posting a response on this thread, and remember, you get what you pay for. The best amplifiers cost more for one reason, they are better. I am a big fan of Phoenix Gold amplifiers.
Dave
One more comment, no amplifiers are under-rated. It would be a bad idea to under rate them, not a good selling point and it makes it harder to match the right speakers if you do not know the real power of an amplifier. Also, MTX and Kicker amplifiers are not high-end in my opinion. I have been repairing car and home amplifiers for over 18 years and I would not buy either of those brands. The Kicker sub-woofers are nice, but the amplifiers need more work by Kicker to consider them high-end. Rockford are good and JL audio are very good.
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