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Why doesn't there seem to be inexpensive and high-performance power amps?

NTomokawa

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I see that we have yet another winner in the headphone amplifier department, the SMSL SP200 THX. Three hundred dollars and 117 dB of SINAD, dang.

That got me thinking. Very few speaker (power) amplifiers even manage to breach the 100 dB SINAD mark. The few that do cost quite a lot.

What seems to be preventing the construction of power amplifiers that are high-performing and inexpensive at the same time?

Is it power?
 

Ron Texas

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There are several in the 85 to 95 SINAD range with reasonable power and prices under $1,000. Can you really hear the difference another 10db SINAD makes?
 

suttondesign

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What bugs me the most is residual hum and noise from the speakers, and poor amps leave a lot to be desired. I isolated my media room with staggered studs and ceiling hangers for the drywall, so silence during quiet movie or symphony passages is important to me.

Then the a/c condenser outside starts up and shatters my whole setup to hell.
 

Daverz

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There are several in the 85 to 95 SINAD range with reasonable power and prices under $1,000. Can you really hear the difference another 10db SINAD makes?

I agree, but why do we have to accept worse performance than DACs and headphone amps, and why is better performance so expensive. I think it's worth knowing the technical and economic reasons this seems to be the case.
 

restorer-john

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What bugs me the most is residual hum and noise from the speakers, and poor amps leave a lot to be desired.

Try the Benchmark AHB-2. It has one of the lowest specified and measured residual noise component I've seen in recent years. Also, the implementation of an high frequency SMPS supply helps by removing a lot of mains residual you would otherwise get with a transformer/recifier/caps traditional supply.

I believe they also have a try and return if you don't like it in the US.
 
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ElNino

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I see that we have yet another winner in the headphone amplifier department, the SMSL SP200 THX. Three hundred dollars and 117 dB of SINAD, dang.

That got me thinking. Very few speaker (power) amplifiers even manage to breach the 100 dB SINAD mark. The few that do cost quite a lot.

What seems to be preventing the construction of power amplifiers that are high-performing and inexpensive at the same time?

Is it power?

LM3886-style chip amps meet most of the requirements: they're very cheap, have a low parts count, and can perform extremely well within their power envelope, and unlike cheap class AB amps actually tend to maintain good distortion performance at very low power levels. Check out Neurochrome's simple "LM3886 Done Right" for measurements of how good this type of amp can be. If you convert it to a compound amplifier, you can get pretty close to state of the art performance for budget style prices. (See Neurochrome's other amps for examples of that.)

These used to be popular in commercial products and in DIY for a brief period, but never really took off in a big way commercially. The problem is that although these are fairly efficient, the heat sink and power supply requirements with these are still a little more onerous than cheaper class D designs, and the public tends to go for size and doesn't really care that much about pushing the performance envelope.
 

bunkbail

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RayDunzl

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Ron Texas

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What bugs me the most is residual hum and noise from the speakers, and poor amps leave a lot to be desired. I isolated my media room with staggered studs and ceiling hangers for the drywall, so silence during quiet movie or symphony passages is important to me.

Then the a/c condenser outside starts up and shatters my whole setup to hell.

You would hate my neighborhood. Lots of morons with leaf blowers, Coit steam cleaners, power washers, tree trimmers and the list goes on.
 

Ron Texas

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We had an off grid island get away, 3 mi off the coast of ME. All weekend chainsaws, lawn mowers and weed whackers.

I hear ya. The Coit guy was the worst offender. I made him turn his truck around so the sound would be directed away from my house. That's why they make closed back headphones...
 

bunkbail

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JohnYang1997

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Think of this way. sp200 is probably 2-8W. For good amp, it's 50W at least, 100W for better and best with 300W plus. The cost goes into each component is much higher. Heat sink and chassis along can cost more than sp200. And we haven't counted power supply. It's of course going to be much more expensive.
Realistically speaking, a sub 10ppm distortion 80W 8ohm(needs to handle 160W 4ohm and should handle 2ohm in certain circumstances) speaker amp is probably going to cost 600 to 1000 dollars already for small runs. Yamaha being mass-producing these, already has offerings with incredible values along with some other individual products.
It's unlikely to see ahb-2 performance under 1000 dollars in the near future.
 

JohnYang1997

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The board and transistors themselves without any protection circuit, power supply circuit etc is going to be very cheap even with high performance. One can design 0.0003% distortion 200W amp board that cost 60 dollars. But to make a complete product is much more difficult.
 
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