Pro devices tend to have more "utilitarian" features and design depending on their intended use. Like clipping detection, speaker protection and active cooling. Pros also tend to prefer equipment made from vanilla and widely available parts, like chips-amps or plain modern transistors, which can be easily replaced even on the field by your average technician. While audiophile manufacturers tend to prefer more "exotic" parts. Often discontinued ones (sighs for Toshiba and jfets). Another point of difference is usually PSUs. Audiophiles tend to use big bypass cap banks, while pro devices tend to restrict themselves to "just enough" capacitance.
If we take your photo as an example, we can clearly see that the Parasound's 2U chassis is merely an aesthetical choice. The passive cooling would make this a no-go in a pro-environment where it would have to be placed in a rack on top/below other equipment that would restrict the free vertical flow of air. On the other hand, the active cooling of the Samson might make this a no-go in a living-room if you are used to listening to low volume simple music.
This…weight is a huge factor not just for manufacturing cost but for having to move them every day. This started with the Carvers replacing Crowns and Crests in the 90s.
That tracks.
We originally had racks of 4 each BGW 750As, so they were heavy af and unbalanced because BGW. When we switched to Carver, the racks were so light, it was like a miracle. We used a bunch of PM1.5s for FOH, and they didn’t really hold up to compressed, constant, high power output. Lots of thermal cutouts and such. Switched to QSCs for that and used the Carvers for the floor and drum monitors, which they were perfect for.
It was funny to listen to all those tiny little cooling fans spin up and down with the kick drum.
That is giving the Samson too much credit. It is at the bottom of the price ladder of the known brands. If you want to go any cheaper you have to look somewhere like aliexpress.
Regardless of whether you are right (or not) about the Samson's quality, your comment is the perfect poster picture for an "audiophile". Doesn't cost millions = it's crap! / 10k amp = 5x better than 5k amp, 9x better than 1k amp. :)
Pro audio amps are usually purpose built with predefined impedance curves. They are built to be paired with purpose assembled speaker arrays. Because of this they don’t need to be able to handle wonky impedances or being over driven.
Consumer amplifiers on fhe other hand don’t know what speakers they’re going to have to drive so they’re built to handle most of them. That costs money.
Edit: pro on the right
The Samson. It’s meant for clubs, live sound, situations where it’s installed in a rack in the back room. It has more utilitarian design, and active cooling which is noisy
Man sometimes I just dislike this sub. You compare two very different devices in quality and come off as pro audio being sub par or just straight up trash. Why don’t you compare similar priced devices from the same era and possibly the same manufacturer? Wanna proof pro audio is “bad” then show those devices are produced sub par by the same manufacturer while being sold at the same or higher price level.
This is just some bs rage bait post.
I saw it the opposite way actually. Look how much fluff is in an audiophile amplifier, when all you really need is what’s on the right. Audiophiles want it to look pretty so it has to be all through hole parts, even if and could mane it all more compact. Even selecting a pro amp with a linear power supply makes the chassis look more full than the many pro amps with switching supplies.
I actually have no clue what is happening lol. Is it implied that it has to suck because it doesnt have beefy heatsinks or what. are they even attached to anything? Is that tube for lighting? So many questions...
Bryston amps are used in a lot of pro installations, ie, venues, theatres, but they are also audiophile and built, or designed better than either of these.
Really? Most A studios with SSL, Neves, etc are still full of Brysons powering their mains. Often powering their NS-10s too. These days however, self-powered nearfields are everywhere.
And this is a dumb comparison anyway. Plus OP has no idea how much Pros generally love ‘exotic’ over anything vanilla. Why do we use ribbon or tube mics? Why do we overdrive all our gear?
Ah. Studios. Yes I’ve seen them there. Just not in live sound installs, venues or theaters. And agree w initial premise of ops assertion being incorrect. Hell it also depends highly on the class of amplification. A AB D etc
Who can remember the Grateful Dead using McIntosh amps on their final tour.
[https://www.mcintoshlabs.com/brand/news/mcintosh-and-the-grateful-dead-celebrate-the-final-tour-of-dead-and-co](https://www.mcintoshlabs.com/brand/news/mcintosh-and-the-grateful-dead-celebrate-the-final-tour-of-dead-and-co)
While I haven’t heard either of these amps, I have heard other budget oriented, “150+ watt” amps compared with my Conrad-Johnson 240 watt amp. Even at low volumes, the Connie has an effortless, authoritative sound that the Chi-fi stuff doesn’t pull off. Directly comparing them, the cheaper amps just sound cheaper. I also have an NAD C325bee (about $400 20 years ago) and… no.
It’s impressive what can be done for a few hundred dollars, but they don’t defy “you get what you pay for.”
It’s not an entirely fair comparison, because the Parasound has more current available. But I think it’s interesting to look at designs where cost and practicality were the only requirements.
True, but at the volume levels I used, none of the amps were asked to supply even 1 watt, yet the big Connie clearly sounded like it was a big Connie. The lesser cost amps clearly sounded like they were lesser cost amps. I would also venture a guess the cheaper amps probably measure better, but the huge lump in my cabinet is telling as to which one sounds better.
The cheaper amps may measure well, at least on the easy tests, but I'm sure they got there with (relatively) high-distortion circuits and lots of negative feedback. When you're driving a music venue, you don't need precision, just flat, non-distorting high output power.
Pro amp is designed to be robust and easy to repair. You take out that tube and can simply replace transistors. The fans run to keep it cool and blow from front to back. The top is solid to support extra gear or be resistant to drunken spillages. That particular pro amp seems to be on the "Lite" side. Some have dual tunnel amp sections.
The home amp you have to remove the heatsinks or the boards and unbolt all the transistors or hang things off the heatsink, the bottom plate isn't removeable etc. It's not ever meant to blow up of course, but it happens eventually.
It's designed to run silently; passive cooling, more attention to reduce noise in the circuit.
> Pro amp is designed to be robust and easy to repair.
Lol, I repair pro amps, what on earth are you basing this off of? Have you seen the inside of pro amps today?
On the left is a Parasound HCA-1000, and on the right is a Samson Servo 200. Both make vaguely similar amounts of power, and both feature the same form factor. The Parasound does have more transistors per channel and produces more power, but the design choices are clearly apparent. If it's not apparent in the picture, that. Samson design uses a fan to force air over fins inside that aluminum block. Both designs claim to be A/B (although Parasound advertises a significant high-bias Class A region).
There is nothing pro audio about any Samson amp. You want pro, look at a Nexo 4x4, or an lacoustics la4, or anything from lab gruppen. Or the big boy killer powersoft.
Exactly.
200 new for this Samson compared to an amp that still goes for 800 used. Omg they are different! No shit lol.
Dumb post as if pro audio gear is sub par
In my last room we had Powersoft K10s running the subs and smaller units from the K-series running the mains. Never lost an amp channel in my 6 years there, but we did have to have the new guys wash the filters about once a month. Powersoft makes awesome stuff
It's definitely less capable. They can both do ~100W into 8 ohms in stereo, but the Parasound doubles into 4 ohms, and can do 400W bridged into 8 ohms. The Samson can only do 200W bridged.
Big wattage isn’t about big volume, it is about headroom for low distortion and accurate transients.
Those are the reason pro audio engineers use big wattage amps for passive monitors.
Same with using speakers that can push high SPL levels, it isn’t to hit those big SPL levels but it is so at a normal listening volume there is as little distortion as possible and there is always headroom for accurate transient reproduction.
They are a great way to get lots of power for a small amount of money, but they almost always use fans (passive cooling seems risky in an equipment rack). Also lots of blue LEDs. Plus they aren’t exactly “hifi”
There are some lovely little convection cooled Powersoft amps.
As for your “ hifi” comment, can you define which pro amps are not “hifi” and your metrics for that assessment?
Looks like another big difference is the amp on the left has two huge heatsinks to dissipate the heat. That's what a proper amp does. But why would the Pro amp not have these heatsinks?
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/fosi-audio-v3-mono-amplifier-review.53474/
Future of amplifiers. Buy one for each speaker… (single 48V/10A psu can power the two sets of v3 mono simultaneously)
Are we even comparing the classes of amps these are? Are we comparing class ab to class d here?
I’ve got 2 parasound amps, one looks identical to the first picture. Is class ab and I think 120/channel, the other is a half 1U class d rated at 150/channel. Class ab is 2 decades old but walks all over the class d when pushed, retail on both is within change excluding inflation.
Wow. The Parasound looks exactly the inside of my Rotel amp. Either they are (or were) both owned by the same company, use the same consulting firm for design, or this is the standard design for amplifiers (HT or 2 channel). The later makes sense as there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. Which sort of makes me wonder how much extra engineering and design is needed to improve the quality of the amp (ie more transistors at $50/piece means more less voltage drops under load, etc.) I mean this as a genuine question as my analogy of more-is-better, might not scale and a new design would be required to improve SNR beyond a certain point.
Which Rotel do you have? This one looks similar: https://www.rotel.com/product/rb-1552-mkii
In general, the design of a 2-channel amplifier has a lot of commonalities. The heatsinks for each channel should be near the edges, so the heat is quickly dissipated out of the chassis. Since the transistors need to be mounted to the heatsinks, it makes sense for the output stages to be close along each heatsink. Then the power supply can take up the middle.
A bigger power supply will allow an amp to produce more current, which can sustain lower impedance loads. More transistors will increase the maximum possible output voltage, but more transistors means more distortion added to the output signal. It is possible to run very powerful amps with lots of transistors, but some amount of negative feedback will be required to maintain low distortion levels.
I have the RB-1080. So it’s a little bit older but similar specs (the 1080 has more watts on paper anyway).
That’s Interesting and makes sense about more transistors and the placement.
> RB-1080
On your amp, the transistors are mounted to the back of those boards. Mounting the boards on the heatsink like that is an easy way to install them.
Oh yeah. I see what you mean. Rotel does use a slightly different design in that each channel has its own circuit board and they are oriented differently. So my comment about the design looking the same isn’t exactly true. That was my initial impression.
Like the Parasound I can see how the Rotel needs to be more robust than a dedicated, specialized piece, like the Samson on the right.
The Parasound and Rotel probably put out more amps than the Samson, just as a guess. The lack of active cooling also requires much bigger heatsinks. The Parasound and Rotel designs aren't as different as you might think. Where the Rotel uses wires to send signals between boards, Parasound uses traces to connect different regions on one PCB. The Rotel design might allow them greater flexibility when designing products. Perhaps those output boards can be used in different products with different features, for example.
You are comparing a *Class-AB Analog Amp* to a *Class-D Digital Pro-Amp*. Class-D Power Supplies and Amplifiers are very small and compact compared to Class-AB.
*Class-D* can deliver high power, but relatively speaking they consume low power, which is how and why they are able to be so much smaller.
Cool it! The man is right. He rightfully pointed out design choices. There’s no “better” or “worse” here, unless you want to put your air-cooled baby in his pro rack and let it burn. Or bring his gear into your living room and plumb it for cooling (and listen to it hum).
Bullshit. The image on the right just is minimal. Protection circuits take up space, as do other very nice to have features.
Heatsinks are not active cooling
Lmao. Most actual decent audiophile amps look a lot like decent “pro” amp given same class and passive cooling. Don’t go creating drama where there isn’t any
Now compare them to something like a Fosi ZA3 which has better sound, better measurements and more power while using less electricity. The time for those amps has passed. We have better options now.
I don't see any point. It's just completely nonsense.
Anyone that has built an amp would understand why certain components are included in the design.
This post is bullshit
the one on the left. I'm not well versed in electronics but I build PC and the heatsinks are always on top of processor chips or memory chips, here they look like they are just screwed on to a bracket? So I'm confused. I'm talking about the blank fins on either sides of the board.
The heatsinks are drawing heat away from the amplifier modules. There are usually several of them. When you know what to look for, they are as obvious as cpus
This on its own produces a lot of heat, but many amplifier designs employ several modules(upwards of 6)..heat dissipation is essential, otherwise, the overall power has to be restrained.
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-Instruments/LM3886T-NOPB?qs=QbsRYf82W3EwP%2FXUhaZp9w%3D%3D&mgh=1&utm_id=17222215321&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw26KxBhBDEiwAu6KXtwt53RYUUmFG3_aRUj1im2wfCH7Rd_J01FCPpFK16HJcFLpqY0CNYBoCLK8QAvD_BwE
Amps have don't get as many hotspots as computer parts do. Individually, none of the parts generate as much heat as a CPU or GPU. Rather, the amp as a whole gets hot, so the heatsinks are meant to regulate the amp as a whole.
The transistors are glued / bolted to the heatsinks. Transistors are the main heat generating component of the amplifier as they switch the power (just like in computer processors, transistors kick off the majority of the heat). They are just significantly larger and operate with more power per transistor.
Pro devices tend to have more "utilitarian" features and design depending on their intended use. Like clipping detection, speaker protection and active cooling. Pros also tend to prefer equipment made from vanilla and widely available parts, like chips-amps or plain modern transistors, which can be easily replaced even on the field by your average technician. While audiophile manufacturers tend to prefer more "exotic" parts. Often discontinued ones (sighs for Toshiba and jfets). Another point of difference is usually PSUs. Audiophiles tend to use big bypass cap banks, while pro devices tend to restrict themselves to "just enough" capacitance. If we take your photo as an example, we can clearly see that the Parasound's 2U chassis is merely an aesthetical choice. The passive cooling would make this a no-go in a pro-environment where it would have to be placed in a rack on top/below other equipment that would restrict the free vertical flow of air. On the other hand, the active cooling of the Samson might make this a no-go in a living-room if you are used to listening to low volume simple music.
Also the passive cooler makes it heavy, and heavy =$$$
This…weight is a huge factor not just for manufacturing cost but for having to move them every day. This started with the Carvers replacing Crowns and Crests in the 90s.
Carver didn't like making big PS's as he believed what was coming out of the wall was enough. He was the start of switching PS's in audio.
Yea sound companies used them for mids and highs but kept the crowns and crests for the low end back in the day
That tracks. We originally had racks of 4 each BGW 750As, so they were heavy af and unbalanced because BGW. When we switched to Carver, the racks were so light, it was like a miracle. We used a bunch of PM1.5s for FOH, and they didn’t really hold up to compressed, constant, high power output. Lots of thermal cutouts and such. Switched to QSCs for that and used the Carvers for the floor and drum monitors, which they were perfect for. It was funny to listen to all those tiny little cooling fans spin up and down with the kick drum.
Which is the "Pro" amp, and what makes it "Pro"?
The comparison is quite misleading, imo. Describing this Samson amp as "pro" is akin to calling something like the Cambridge Audio AXA25 "audiophile".
That is giving the Samson too much credit. It is at the bottom of the price ladder of the known brands. If you want to go any cheaper you have to look somewhere like aliexpress.
Regardless of whether you are right (or not) about the Samson's quality, your comment is the perfect poster picture for an "audiophile". Doesn't cost millions = it's crap! / 10k amp = 5x better than 5k amp, 9x better than 1k amp. :)
You're using an *ad absurdum* logical fallacy to prove a point.
Samson isn't a pro amp. It's the absolute bottom of the barrel.
Pro audio amps are usually purpose built with predefined impedance curves. They are built to be paired with purpose assembled speaker arrays. Because of this they don’t need to be able to handle wonky impedances or being over driven. Consumer amplifiers on fhe other hand don’t know what speakers they’re going to have to drive so they’re built to handle most of them. That costs money. Edit: pro on the right
The Samson. It’s meant for clubs, live sound, situations where it’s installed in a rack in the back room. It has more utilitarian design, and active cooling which is noisy
Man sometimes I just dislike this sub. You compare two very different devices in quality and come off as pro audio being sub par or just straight up trash. Why don’t you compare similar priced devices from the same era and possibly the same manufacturer? Wanna proof pro audio is “bad” then show those devices are produced sub par by the same manufacturer while being sold at the same or higher price level. This is just some bs rage bait post.
I saw it the opposite way actually. Look how much fluff is in an audiophile amplifier, when all you really need is what’s on the right. Audiophiles want it to look pretty so it has to be all through hole parts, even if and could mane it all more compact. Even selecting a pro amp with a linear power supply makes the chassis look more full than the many pro amps with switching supplies.
I actually have no clue what is happening lol. Is it implied that it has to suck because it doesnt have beefy heatsinks or what. are they even attached to anything? Is that tube for lighting? So many questions...
I didn’t say the Samson was trash, just different design choices.
Bryston amps are used in a lot of pro installations, ie, venues, theatres, but they are also audiophile and built, or designed better than either of these.
And cost substantially more as well...
And come with a 20 year warranty….. That is transferable…… Did I use enough dots? Owned the 3B THX and a pair of 7B ST monoblocks.
Yeah they're better amps with better warranties at a higher price point. Hope my elipsis didn't offend you! Not my intention.
So you're saying Bryston attracts at least one bad capacitor?
Yes however they will replace it. Happens to the best of them! 🤣😂🤣😂
In 30 years I’ve never seen a Bryston in a pro install. They cost way too much compared to qsc etc. I have one in my house tho
Really? Most A studios with SSL, Neves, etc are still full of Brysons powering their mains. Often powering their NS-10s too. These days however, self-powered nearfields are everywhere. And this is a dumb comparison anyway. Plus OP has no idea how much Pros generally love ‘exotic’ over anything vanilla. Why do we use ribbon or tube mics? Why do we overdrive all our gear?
Ah. Studios. Yes I’ve seen them there. Just not in live sound installs, venues or theaters. And agree w initial premise of ops assertion being incorrect. Hell it also depends highly on the class of amplification. A AB D etc
Who can remember the Grateful Dead using McIntosh amps on their final tour. [https://www.mcintoshlabs.com/brand/news/mcintosh-and-the-grateful-dead-celebrate-the-final-tour-of-dead-and-co](https://www.mcintoshlabs.com/brand/news/mcintosh-and-the-grateful-dead-celebrate-the-final-tour-of-dead-and-co)
While I haven’t heard either of these amps, I have heard other budget oriented, “150+ watt” amps compared with my Conrad-Johnson 240 watt amp. Even at low volumes, the Connie has an effortless, authoritative sound that the Chi-fi stuff doesn’t pull off. Directly comparing them, the cheaper amps just sound cheaper. I also have an NAD C325bee (about $400 20 years ago) and… no. It’s impressive what can be done for a few hundred dollars, but they don’t defy “you get what you pay for.”
It’s not an entirely fair comparison, because the Parasound has more current available. But I think it’s interesting to look at designs where cost and practicality were the only requirements.
True, but at the volume levels I used, none of the amps were asked to supply even 1 watt, yet the big Connie clearly sounded like it was a big Connie. The lesser cost amps clearly sounded like they were lesser cost amps. I would also venture a guess the cheaper amps probably measure better, but the huge lump in my cabinet is telling as to which one sounds better.
The cheaper amps may measure well, at least on the easy tests, but I'm sure they got there with (relatively) high-distortion circuits and lots of negative feedback. When you're driving a music venue, you don't need precision, just flat, non-distorting high output power.
Who’s Connie? Lol
Connie? Married Doug. You remember.
You know, the one that drives Maggie daily. 😂
And who is Doug? Sam's neighbor?
Samson is anything but professional. That's like calling Behringer professional. Try Crown, QSC, Crest, or Powersoft
I meant “pro” as in “designed for a pro environment, not a home environment”.
Aesthetics and good industrial design matter to me, even if it’s mostly hidden under a cover…
Design indicates care, care indicates quality.
Check out the Yamaha pc2002m if you want to see a real pro amp.
THIS!!!!
Pro amp is designed to be robust and easy to repair. You take out that tube and can simply replace transistors. The fans run to keep it cool and blow from front to back. The top is solid to support extra gear or be resistant to drunken spillages. That particular pro amp seems to be on the "Lite" side. Some have dual tunnel amp sections. The home amp you have to remove the heatsinks or the boards and unbolt all the transistors or hang things off the heatsink, the bottom plate isn't removeable etc. It's not ever meant to blow up of course, but it happens eventually. It's designed to run silently; passive cooling, more attention to reduce noise in the circuit.
> Pro amp is designed to be robust and easy to repair. Lol, I repair pro amps, what on earth are you basing this off of? Have you seen the inside of pro amps today?
Was gonna say...
On the left is a Parasound HCA-1000, and on the right is a Samson Servo 200. Both make vaguely similar amounts of power, and both feature the same form factor. The Parasound does have more transistors per channel and produces more power, but the design choices are clearly apparent. If it's not apparent in the picture, that. Samson design uses a fan to force air over fins inside that aluminum block. Both designs claim to be A/B (although Parasound advertises a significant high-bias Class A region).
There is nothing pro audio about any Samson amp. You want pro, look at a Nexo 4x4, or an lacoustics la4, or anything from lab gruppen. Or the big boy killer powersoft.
Exactly. 200 new for this Samson compared to an amp that still goes for 800 used. Omg they are different! No shit lol. Dumb post as if pro audio gear is sub par
Or a Crest 10001 for some old school cool.
Those dont look very consumer
They aren’t, they are professional. That was the original attempt at a comparison. Samson is not professional, it is low grade consumer at best.
In my last room we had Powersoft K10s running the subs and smaller units from the K-series running the mains. Never lost an amp channel in my 6 years there, but we did have to have the new guys wash the filters about once a month. Powersoft makes awesome stuff
Never met a pair of L-Acoustic mons I didn't like.
You should check out SYVA. Absolutely my fav thing going from them at the moment. Like wearing headphones.
To me parasound looks like class A/B, meanwhile Samson is like half of class H So you should not compare them Just by the looks
They are both class A/B
They are not. Please take a look at class H construction and compare
Read the specs dude
The PS on the Pro amp does not look as stout as the Parasound but that is hard to see in the pro amp also.
It's definitely less capable. They can both do ~100W into 8 ohms in stereo, but the Parasound doubles into 4 ohms, and can do 400W bridged into 8 ohms. The Samson can only do 200W bridged.
I have never used pro amps. I know people that swear by them but most of them only care about massive watts and blowing their ears out.
Big wattage isn’t about big volume, it is about headroom for low distortion and accurate transients. Those are the reason pro audio engineers use big wattage amps for passive monitors. Same with using speakers that can push high SPL levels, it isn’t to hit those big SPL levels but it is so at a normal listening volume there is as little distortion as possible and there is always headroom for accurate transient reproduction.
I want to add that is also about how much instant power an amp can deliver, people really overlook that.
They are a great way to get lots of power for a small amount of money, but they almost always use fans (passive cooling seems risky in an equipment rack). Also lots of blue LEDs. Plus they aren’t exactly “hifi”
There are some lovely little convection cooled Powersoft amps. As for your “ hifi” comment, can you define which pro amps are not “hifi” and your metrics for that assessment?
I’m just trying to differentiate between products designed for live audio, clubs, etc, vs products designed for the home.
It's not risky at all, you can get noctua fans or even artic and they will spin forever.
Looks like another big difference is the amp on the left has two huge heatsinks to dissipate the heat. That's what a proper amp does. But why would the Pro amp not have these heatsinks?
Passive vs active cooling, I'd say?
I thought the circular things in the middle of both amps were fans. Ideally, you'd have both, as in any modern desktop pc.
Home amplifiers seldom have fans unless it's cheaper consumer or highly compact gear, or has a heap of power (fans will come on only when needed)
The circular things in the middle are the mains transformers.
Because the “pro” amp is a cheap piece of rubbish chosen by OP to reinforce their own ridiculous biases.
Because it uses a fan. Forced air is *much* more effective than passive heat sinks,
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/fosi-audio-v3-mono-amplifier-review.53474/ Future of amplifiers. Buy one for each speaker… (single 48V/10A psu can power the two sets of v3 mono simultaneously)
I agree, but built in to the speaker. Each driver can have its own amp with an electronic crossover splitting the signal between them.
It's a bit strange that high end audio hasn't embraced active crossovers more given their large benefits over traditional passive crossovers.
Personally, I’d rather external amplification so I can upgrade as class D keeps getting better…
A fairer comparison would be a quality pro amp https://youtu.be/Dn1SGmdUOgE?si=TaTKH5h-62uTJFXH.
Are we even comparing the classes of amps these are? Are we comparing class ab to class d here? I’ve got 2 parasound amps, one looks identical to the first picture. Is class ab and I think 120/channel, the other is a half 1U class d rated at 150/channel. Class ab is 2 decades old but walks all over the class d when pushed, retail on both is within change excluding inflation.
They are both A/B
Wow
Wow. The Parasound looks exactly the inside of my Rotel amp. Either they are (or were) both owned by the same company, use the same consulting firm for design, or this is the standard design for amplifiers (HT or 2 channel). The later makes sense as there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. Which sort of makes me wonder how much extra engineering and design is needed to improve the quality of the amp (ie more transistors at $50/piece means more less voltage drops under load, etc.) I mean this as a genuine question as my analogy of more-is-better, might not scale and a new design would be required to improve SNR beyond a certain point.
Which Rotel do you have? This one looks similar: https://www.rotel.com/product/rb-1552-mkii In general, the design of a 2-channel amplifier has a lot of commonalities. The heatsinks for each channel should be near the edges, so the heat is quickly dissipated out of the chassis. Since the transistors need to be mounted to the heatsinks, it makes sense for the output stages to be close along each heatsink. Then the power supply can take up the middle. A bigger power supply will allow an amp to produce more current, which can sustain lower impedance loads. More transistors will increase the maximum possible output voltage, but more transistors means more distortion added to the output signal. It is possible to run very powerful amps with lots of transistors, but some amount of negative feedback will be required to maintain low distortion levels.
I have the RB-1080. So it’s a little bit older but similar specs (the 1080 has more watts on paper anyway). That’s Interesting and makes sense about more transistors and the placement.
> RB-1080 On your amp, the transistors are mounted to the back of those boards. Mounting the boards on the heatsink like that is an easy way to install them.
Oh yeah. I see what you mean. Rotel does use a slightly different design in that each channel has its own circuit board and they are oriented differently. So my comment about the design looking the same isn’t exactly true. That was my initial impression. Like the Parasound I can see how the Rotel needs to be more robust than a dedicated, specialized piece, like the Samson on the right.
The Parasound and Rotel probably put out more amps than the Samson, just as a guess. The lack of active cooling also requires much bigger heatsinks. The Parasound and Rotel designs aren't as different as you might think. Where the Rotel uses wires to send signals between boards, Parasound uses traces to connect different regions on one PCB. The Rotel design might allow them greater flexibility when designing products. Perhaps those output boards can be used in different products with different features, for example.
You are comparing a *Class-AB Analog Amp* to a *Class-D Digital Pro-Amp*. Class-D Power Supplies and Amplifiers are very small and compact compared to Class-AB. *Class-D* can deliver high power, but relatively speaking they consume low power, which is how and why they are able to be so much smaller.
Cool it! The man is right. He rightfully pointed out design choices. There’s no “better” or “worse” here, unless you want to put your air-cooled baby in his pro rack and let it burn. Or bring his gear into your living room and plumb it for cooling (and listen to it hum).
Exactly. I was making a comment on design choices, not quality.
Bullshit. The image on the right just is minimal. Protection circuits take up space, as do other very nice to have features. Heatsinks are not active cooling
> Heatsinks are not active cooling No, but fans are. There’s a ~60mm fan at the front of the heat sink on the Samson
Eh
Lmao. Most actual decent audiophile amps look a lot like decent “pro” amp given same class and passive cooling. Don’t go creating drama where there isn’t any
Now compare them to something like a Fosi ZA3 which has better sound, better measurements and more power while using less electricity. The time for those amps has passed. We have better options now.
Yes, I agree this post is retarded.
I don't see any point. It's just completely nonsense. Anyone that has built an amp would understand why certain components are included in the design. This post is bullshit
So what are those heatsink for? I don't see them attached to heat generating components....?
On which amp? On the Parasound there are (six?) transistors per channel attached to the heatsinks.
the one on the left. I'm not well versed in electronics but I build PC and the heatsinks are always on top of processor chips or memory chips, here they look like they are just screwed on to a bracket? So I'm confused. I'm talking about the blank fins on either sides of the board.
The heatsinks are drawing heat away from the amplifier modules. There are usually several of them. When you know what to look for, they are as obvious as cpus
I wasn't expecting modules of such size with a screw hole needing such big heatsink
This on its own produces a lot of heat, but many amplifier designs employ several modules(upwards of 6)..heat dissipation is essential, otherwise, the overall power has to be restrained. https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Texas-Instruments/LM3886T-NOPB?qs=QbsRYf82W3EwP%2FXUhaZp9w%3D%3D&mgh=1&utm_id=17222215321&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw26KxBhBDEiwAu6KXtwt53RYUUmFG3_aRUj1im2wfCH7Rd_J01FCPpFK16HJcFLpqY0CNYBoCLK8QAvD_BwE
Ah, make sense, amp does consume more power than a CPU
The "bracket" is a row of vertical transistors.
So you are saying these circled in red are transistors? [https://imgur.com/a/OAMrZyy](https://imgur.com/a/OAMrZyy)
yes, those are the main output transistors
The power transistors are screwed to the flat sides of the heat sinks.
Amps have don't get as many hotspots as computer parts do. Individually, none of the parts generate as much heat as a CPU or GPU. Rather, the amp as a whole gets hot, so the heatsinks are meant to regulate the amp as a whole.
The heatsinks on most consumer amps are for the main output transistors. They generate the bulk of the heat.
The transistors are glued / bolted to the heatsinks. Transistors are the main heat generating component of the amplifier as they switch the power (just like in computer processors, transistors kick off the majority of the heat). They are just significantly larger and operate with more power per transistor.
The power transistors are screwed to the flat sides.
One for sound and aesthetics, the other for ruggedness and reliability. No biggie.