amp dyno

[jonbearsmt 919]

 i made a comment on a post on facebook, and tony d'amore  said he would be happy to come to SSA and talk about the amp dyno ,

 

 he actually told me there would be no debate because its science , so  here is the topic.  where he and we may discuss .. i mean .. talk about science

Edited November 17, 2013 by bigjon

[Tirefryr 1,742]

IIRC, all those affiliated with SMD attempted a similar marketing ploy here with the DD1 and it was futile. . . . But any publicity is good publicity.

[jonbearsmt 919]

IIRC, all those affiliated with SMD attempted a similar marketing ploy here with the DD1 and it was futile. . . . But any publicity is good publicity.

my point was he said he would have no problems explaining why its not up for debate.. .. so i told him then come to SSA and do so...... i doubt he will show.

[jonbearsmt 919]

he just became a member .. thats a great sign

[liljestrand 244]

He just needs to remove the burst option or whatever it is so people dont think a 5k amp is doing 9k

[Tony D'Amore 15]

Hey guys here I am

[jonbearsmt 919]

Hey guys here I am

great ,.. welcome,

 of course this will be an on going thread  not every one is on now.  but  thank you for coming to answer our questions.

[Tony D'Amore 15]

Thanks for having me. I'll do my best

[liljestrand 244]

Ok tony since you are here. What is the one mode and impedence that would give us the best idea of how the aamp would really perform. Id assume certified at 1 ohm?

The reason I ask is ive seen various people posting screen shots of x amp doing y amount of watts but then you notice its burst or dynamic or whatever at .5 or .8 or whatever they selected.

[ramteid 17]

Great. I have a question. I was on another forum recently and seen that you had said something about the amp dyno "reading dynamic power based on industry standard" would you care to enlighten me a little more on dynamic power being an industry standard? I have only seen a few companies say anything about dynamic power and it seems as if, to me, it is basically a better way to say peak power?

[Tony D'Amore 15]

Ok tony since you are here. What is the one mode and impedence that would give us the best idea of how the aamp would really perform. Id assume certified at 1 ohm?

The reason I ask is ive seen various people posting screen shots of x amp doing y amount of watts but then you notice its burst or dynamic or whatever at .5 or .8 or whatever they selected.

I guess I would have to know what you mean by "how would it really perform".  If you are talking about SPL with sine waves then the dynamic test is pointless and you would not be able to comare two amplifiers based on that number.  So yes for SPL with sine waves you are right, the certified mode would be the one to use, and at the lowest impedance the amp can handle without going into protection.

 

If we are talking about how it would perform with music, that is a different topic.

[Tony D'Amore 15]

Great. I have a question. I was on another forum recently and seen that you had said something about the amp dyno "reading dynamic power based on industry standard" would you care to enlighten me a little more on dynamic power being an industry standard? I have only seen a few companies say anything about dynamic power and it seems as if, to me, it is basically a better way to say peak power?

Dynamic power testing is the standard used on hi-fi home audio.  This is where the measurement "Headroom" comes from.  People mistakingly use that term for other things.  The definition of dynamic headroom is the difference between continuous power and dynamic power and is expressed in dB.  For example, if an amplifier does 100 Watts continous, but did 400 Watts dynamic we would say that it has 6dB of headroom.  It is a term used to tell you about the power supply of the amplifier.  It is a valid spec when talking about how an amplifier would sound on music.  If amplifier A had 100 watts continuous, 200 watts dynamic and amplifier B had 100 watts continuous, 400 watts dynamic, amplifier B would sound MUCH better on music, esp when turned up.  In a SPL competition where the SPL is averaged over some time period they would both score exactly the same.  The term Peak Power is marketing bullshit that has absolutely no science behind it and means nothing.

[shizzzon 461]

I guess this is where i'm going to need some more info.. 

 

Your analogy of-

Amp A 100wrms 200wpeak

vs

Amp B 100wrms 400wpeak

 

If an amp is going to make the speaker(s) sound any different, wouldn't that just be a reflection of how much distortion is being driven to the speaker(s)?

 

If both amps do the same continuous power at the same everything, voltage, input voltage, HU volume number, bla bla bla.. 

And both amps output 100wrms at the same distortion level, then how would Amp B sound any better?

 

Another problem i have is this-

 

IF i am looking at this wrong.. let's say I was.. 

This whole discussion about dynamic keeps going back to when playing music.. playing music.. playing music.. 

 

It takes quite a bit of power for the human ear to hear a difference in amplitude.

And dynamic is so quick, it would be easily debatable, in my opinion, that even if an amp doubled it's dynamic output power when playing music, no one would be able to hear it.

 

Just for kicks.. i haven't seen a single amp tested where it's dynamic rating is at or more than 200% of it's certified output.

 

So.. because of this, if I installed a 2000w amp and then swapped it out for a 3500w amp, i may hear a difference on some songs but not all and this is practically doubling my amp power all the time.. 

 

The ability to measure dynamically to show an increase in output power for the sake of saying this amp will sound better doesn't make any sense when dynamically speaking in the real world, the spike would be too fast and not enough amplitude to audibly hear a difference.

 

You may not be comparing output power to output power.. but if the dyno says it does it of a % greater than the certified score.. then same rules apply in a vehicle or with any power supply weak or strong.. Dynamic is always higher obviously.

 

So.. output power or a cleaner audible experience.. all other things being equal especially THD between multiple amps, there shouldn't be a reason why one amp is\would sound better than another.

[Tony D'Amore 15]

I guess this is where i'm going to need some more info.. 

 

Your analogy of-

Amp A 100wrms 200wpeak

vs

Amp B 100wrms 400wpeak

 

If an amp is going to make the speaker(s) sound any different, wouldn't that just be a reflection of how much distortion is being driven to the speaker(s)?

 

If both amps do the same continuous power at the same everything, voltage, input voltage, HU volume number, bla bla bla.. 

And both amps output 100wrms at the same distortion level, then how would Amp B sound any better?

 

Another problem i have is this-

 

IF i am looking at this wrong.. let's say I was.. 

This whole discussion about dynamic keeps going back to when playing music.. playing music.. playing music.. 

 

It takes quite a bit of power for the human ear to hear a difference in amplitude.

And dynamic is so quick, it would be easily debatable, in my opinion, that even if an amp doubled it's dynamic output power when playing music, no one would be able to hear it.

 

Just for kicks.. i haven't seen a single amp tested where it's dynamic rating is at or more than 200% of it's certified output.

 

So.. because of this, if I installed a 2000w amp and then swapped it out for a 3500w amp, i may hear a difference on some songs but not all and this is practically doubling my amp power all the time.. 

 

The ability to measure dynamically to show an increase in output power for the sake of saying this amp will sound better doesn't make any sense when dynamically speaking in the real world, the spike would be too fast and not enough amplitude to audibly hear a difference.

 

You may not be comparing output power to output power.. but if the dyno says it does it of a % greater than the certified score.. then same rules apply in a vehicle or with any power supply weak or strong.. Dynamic is always higher obviously.

 

So.. output power or a cleaner audible experience.. all other things being equal especially THD between multiple amps, there shouldn't be a reason why one amp is\would sound better than another.

The reason the amp with the higher dynamic power rating would sound better on music is because the peaks of the waveforms wouldn't be clipped off as they would in an amp with a lower dynamic power rating.  Some legendary audiophile did a scientifc test where he was in a completely quiet space and recorded a pin drop.  They studied the recording and found that if you wanted to ACCURATELY duplicate the pin drop on an audio system you would need like 10,000 - 15,000 watts.  When it comes to music, its all about dynamics.  Obviously 99.9% of people don't have a 15,000 watt audio system anywhere in their lives.  So the sound engineers compress it.  They bring the loud parts down and the quiet parts up.  This way the window, the difference (the dynamic range) of the signal is small enough so that it sounds okay on a 10 watt system.  Ever hear live music?  Stand in front of a drum kit for a minute and really listen to it.  Ever hear anyones audio system sound like that?  Unlikely.  First off, you would have to obtain a recording that isn't dynamic range compressed.  (different than size compression like mp3).  Then you would probably need 30k watts or more and enough FULL RANGE speakers to handle it.  Most of us have never heard this so we don't know what we are missing.  But if you played amp A and amp B from the example above, and you limited the volume level to the point of audible distortion in the music, amp B will walk all over amp A.  Want to see amplifier manufactures that know this?  Look up NAD home amplifiers, Carver home amplifiers, and B&K to name a few.  Some good reading on the topic here:

http://www.axiomaudio.com/dynamicheadroom

[Tony D'Amore 15]

So because this dynamic power measurment can give you an idea how it would sound on music, and it tells you instantly if the amplifier has a regulated power supply or not (amps with regulated power supplies have 0dB of headroom, and as such the continuous power and dynamic power would be the same), we decided to add this feature to the AD-1.  As far as I know, the AD-1 Amplifier Dyno is the only device capable of measuring it at 40Hz without using oscilloscopes and calculators.  There is another machine that can automatically measure it at 1kHz, it is called the PowerCube by AudioGraph, made in Sweden, $30k. 

Edited November 18, 2013 by Tony D

[Quentin Jarrell 671]

As a new company that firmly believes in proper testing procedures, and  plans on expanding into amplifiers I would be interested if your product has been test benched against other industry recognized standards such as Audio Precision or Sound cube.  Or better yet has ISO 17025:2005 certificates, or am I misunderstanding the nature of this product?  

[Tony D'Amore 15]

As a new company that firmly believes in proper testing procedures, and  plans on expanding into amplifiers I would be interested if your product has been test benched against other industry recognized standards such as Audio Precision or Sound cube.  Or better yet has ISO 17025:2005 certificates, or am I misunderstanding the nature of this product?  

It has been tested against the Audip Precision 525x and the Hewlett Packard 8903A. 

Edited November 18, 2013 by Tony D

[Quentin Jarrell 671]

As a new company that firmly believes in proper testing procedures, and  plans on expanding into amplifiers I would be interested if your product has been test benched against other industry recognized standards such as Audio Precision or Sound cube.  Or better yet has ISO 17025:2005 certificates, or am I misunderstanding the nature of this product?  

It has been tested against the Audip Precision 575x and the Hewlett Packard 8903A. 

It be awesome if you happen to have a video of that in action.  Does your company own it's own You Tube channel.  It would be nice to see the engineer of this thing make a few runs on it. 

[Tony D'Amore 15]

 

As a new company that firmly believes in proper testing procedures, and  plans on expanding into amplifiers I would be interested if your product has been test benched against other industry recognized standards such as Audio Precision or Sound cube.  Or better yet has ISO 17025:2005 certificates, or am I misunderstanding the nature of this product?  

It has been tested against the Audip Precision 575x and the Hewlett Packard 8903A. 

It be awesome if you happen to have a video of that in action.  Does your company own it's own You Tube channel.  It would be nice to see the engineer of this thing make a few runs on it. 

Yes our Youtube channel is DamoreEngineering  Also lots of pics on our instagram.  You can get to it through our website damoreengineering.com, click on photo gallery

[ricksi30 923]

Subscribed...tuned in for sure.

[PHATBOi 38]

The explanation of dynamic headroom not cutting off the sine waves makes sense to me. Thank you for that explanation.

[pro-rabbit 64]

I understand the idea behind dynamics, however, applying the idea to mobile audio seems a bit over extended so to speak. The idea behind it, is to show how an amplifier will perform musically on various dynamics , however those very dynamics are compressed and altered for 99% of our applications. 

 

Anyway, I sent you a PM Tony on another question.

[Tony D'Amore 15]

I understand the idea behind dynamics, however, applying the idea to mobile audio seems a bit over extended so to speak. The idea behind it, is to show how an amplifier will perform musically on various dynamics , however those very dynamics are compressed and altered for 99% of our applications. 

 

Anyway, I sent you a PM Tony on another question.

Agreed, it's tough to find music these days that isn't heavily compressed.

[gprestonmoto 89]

I've been waiting for this discussion. Sub'd.

[KyleBrown 121]

Definitely tuned in, thank you for your time Tony.