Well, this weight-judgement certainly only works for regular class A/B amps. But there it works pretty well: A heavy one has obviously a bigger transformer and heatsinks in it, which tells us indeed something about power output! And it tells us something about build quality.
I don’t currently enjoy any of the class D amps I’ve listened to, even the new Nova series. That said, when you’re looking at class A or A/B amplifiers weight does give you a general idea of build quality. Audio by the pound is pretty accurate too, generally as weight goes up so does the price. More components, more time spend to assemble, etc.
Well, yes and no. Heatsinks are a very important and necessary part of a high power amp and add a lotta weight. Back in 1979 I purchased a Hitachi (class G) SR-804 receiver rated at 50wpc with 3 dB of headroom. It weighs , due to class G amplification, under 25 pounds. Most, if not all, 50wpc receivers then weighed over 30 pounds with some near 40 pounds. So the weight thing ain't so important. My hifi speakers in use now are Ohm Acoustics models L (35 lbs ea.), model H (52 lbs ea.)and EPI-180 (62 lbs ea.), funny how that works. Really interesting topic and another great video.
I think I read somewhere that Beats by Dr Dre headphones had metal weights inside that had no function but were just there to disguise the fact that they were largely made of lightweight cheap plastic to make them appear better quality than they actually are.
The question is about used older integrated analog Solid state A/B amps and there you can go normaly after weight. Most of the time the more heavy the amp is the more expensive and better parts was used. Thick Aluminium Chassis , big Transformator, big elkos Caps ,heatsink and and and. At least you can say it will sound better and will have more Power / Watts and normaly lower distorshion.
Good is what is good for you. If you like classic music go for a good sounding analog amp and select it to match the rest of your equipment, especially the speakers, if you like to annoy your neighbourhood with rap or techno go for a max output and efficency class D. Spend an appropriate of money to each part of your equipment, the worst part will determine the sound quality. What many people forget is the source. If your only source of music is the radio or highly compressed internet sources or mp3 dont waste your money on high end equipment: garbage in - garbage out. Last not least: Listen to the music, not to friends, salesmen or phony reviews. (not saying a second opinion or some advice is useless)
If an amp weighs more because it has a big juicy toroidal transformer it will sound better than a lighter one with a regular transformer. But you'd have to look inside the case and also check if it has good capacitors, a clean layout... and I won't say much more because I'm out of my league. Although I'm an audio enthusiast my technical knowledge is not deep.
The big juicy toroidal transformer does not always lead to a better sounding unit than a regular transformer. If everything else is the same, probably, unless the regular one is already over kill. But if the lighter unit has a better design and higher quality parts, it probably will sound better than the unit with the brute transformer. It’s the overall design that matters.
The care and skills that are put into the engineering of an audio product make the difference. Nowadays you can find a lot of audio products engineered by inexperienced newly graduated engineers in especially Southern China (mostly north of Shenzhen) having no sense of what audiophile performance actually means. For these products, don't get fooled by the looks and the weight as the engineering lacked the fundamental passion for perfecting the sound quality. PS Audio is in the other end of the scale with engineers having passion for audio.
Sounds about right👍 A Class D amp will often be light compared to a Class A or A/B. But if we only look at A/B amps the higher weight often tells us it has a big power supply and a good build. I have 7ch (7x85w FTC or 2x 100w FTC all ch driven @ 20Hz-20kHz in 8ohms) surround reciver that weighs about 23-24kg and a 2ch (2x150w FTC both ch driven @ 20Hz-20kHz in 8ohms) stereo amp (with seperate inputs for use as a power amp) that weighs 19kg. The surround reciver has a "normal" but heavy 1480w power supply and a big heatsink and the stereo amp has 2x 500w (1000w total) toriodial transformers and 2 big heatsinks and it runs class A for the first watts and then class A/B for the rest. But I could get the same performance from a Class D amp with half the weight. It's complicated to see the quality from the weight alone. There are so many factors that a person can go nuts😂 But back in the day weight was a good way to tell if it was a good or just a cheap amp. But that's just not the case anymore.
I really appreciate Paul for his helpful YT videos and watch all of them. My equipment may not be of the the same high caliber as PS Audio but it is still very good. I have 2 each Amplifier Technologies Inc /ATI AT2505 amplifiers that weigh 105 pounds each. A lot of that is the 3Kv Toroidal Transformers. These amplifiers are rated at 250 @ 8 ohms and 375 @ 4 ohms X 5 channels all channels driven. They can draw 2400 watts each or more from the wall outlet and must be on their own dedicated 120v 20 amp outlets for which I use 10 gauge wiring instead of the 12 gauge wiring. One of the benefits of using Toroidal transformers vs conventional transformers is that Toroidals can be about only 60 percent of the size as conventional transformers to produce the same power therefor saving size and weight.
Now you're cookin' with gas!! Crown amps have been known to give hernias! :) Yes the weight does indicate quality casing and transformer (heat sinks, etc.) and usually means it delivers power, rather than publicizes it frivolously.
@G Guest I used my DC-300A to drive a subwoofer. But alas it was time to change the power supply caps and that was gonna cost about $350. So I bought a Crown XLS1000, bridged it, and it works way better then the DC300A did. And cost about the same.
Could you explain audio wattage/voltage what type of power is produced, and why is that type of wattage expensive to produce with AC input power of 2400w at 120v. Years of playing with audio and knowledge of electricity that aspect has always been confusing.
A unit that severely clips at 20W will blow the tweeter far more quickly that a clean 100W. The clipping signal becomes a square wave, and square waves are murder on a tweeter. Far more power makes its way through the crossover.
@Larry Niles have you ever tried testing a tweeter with square wave? i guess not. and why does square wave kill tweeters in one circumstance but not the other? what do you think would happen if you drive a 20 watt tweeter with a 500 watt clean sine wave? it's funny that Neil said it himself "Far more power makes its way through the crossover" and before blaming clipping/square wave, do you even know the rated RMS power of your tweeters? you need to use your brain more, guys. there's a reason they're rated in "watt".
@@juliaset751 why not? it's a simple way to test a speaker driver. a single regular battery is capable of only a few watts, it's not gonna hurt even the most fragile tweeters you can ever find on the market.
My heaviest amps were 110lb monoblocks. After owning these I swore I would no longer own any equipment I can't lift. Speakers excepted. My current amps are only 65lbs each, and Class A. Do they have large heatsinks? Yes they do. If you measure across the top of the amp it is about 18" wide, but the actual chassis is around 10". The weight of the heat sinks is nothing compared to the giant power transformer inside. Probably half of the weight is right there. They idle at 400 watts, and draw 400 watts at full power. Do they heat up the room? Would four, 100 watt light bulbs heat a room? Hardly, but it would make for one rocking Easy Bake oven. How about my power bills? I figure they cost about 1 cent per hour to operate. That's not going to bankrupt anyone. At least no one who can afford these amps. By the way, my 150 watt, Class AB tube monoblocks put out a lot more heat than the Class A amps.
It tells us the manufacturer wants a big price for it so dig very deep in your pocket because if you want it you have to pay for it and through the nose 😩
Paul, you should introduce your team to a website called trello, you can create multiple boards like the one that the engineers use. One of the good things is that teams could be in different locations and login to see the same up to date board.
Yes, we know Trello. This physical board seems to work better for everyone because of the commonality it brings to the morning meeting. When you use Trello everyone remains in their little cubicle and no one talks to each other.
Knowing "weight matters" I suppose some sleazy "designers" can simply add compartments and fill them with sand and seal! If they get busted I guess they would say their Silicon Valley approach "adds enhanced full resonance stability." If you live in a flood zone, and the water is rising, well you might lose the amps anyway, BUT you'll need one less sand bag for protection!
The main thing the weight of an amp tells you is whether or not it’ll be hard to lift. Speaking of lifting, what’s the use of weightlifting? The weights are in the same place they were when you started, and you’re just sore afterwards.
I have a Onkyo receiver that has plenty of power and sounds great but it likes to get hot. I did a home made cooling fan system that worked so so until it broke so I bought a Aircom. Hoping my hot receiver issues are over. I've had it open before and though it need more heatsink.
I repair some amplifier before it's made in china... And it's heavy, when i open it i saw a large block of square plastic, inside of that plastic is a cement,.. And the purpose of that is just to gain weight of the amplifier,..
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio I encountered a lot of that Crappy Amplifier,.. Some spec's are unbelievable,.. The manual say's 450W into 8Ohms,.. But when i test it to my bench it's only 28Vrms Before clipping into 8 Ohms Load,.. I think there's no such kind of Crappy Amplifier for sale in you're Country Sir,. Because there's a lot of nice Audio company in you're country including PS Audio,.. And also there are so many Audio Enthusiast that build their own speaker ang power amplifier out their...
I despise everything made in china. I buy only made in japan stuff from Golden era of hi-fi. Cement inside, oh watch chinese have their own ideas after all loooooool
the weight tells us how big the transformer is, and who says all the time that a big transformer is a kid in a candy shop? you my friend, so heavier = better
Technology has changed over the last few years. Then introduction of switching power supplies has made the weight question meaningless. There's several Class D (mostly) amplifiers from highly respected manufacturers, that are less than 10 kg and yet, sound sublime. This of course does not apply for tube amplification where, the weight of the power transformer as well as the pair of output ones make the component rather heavy.
Low wattage amplifiers are not going to hurt your speakers 20 watts or 30 Watts per channel is 20 RMS is fine. just don't look for an amplifier that has thin plating chasing but beefy one millimetre Steel casing and aluminium bottom
@Larry Niles yes very cheap quality amplifier maybe but if it's got a decent power supply shouldn't be a problem, when the power supplies struggles is the issue! and you can't really listen above 10 watts RMS anyway that would be uncomfortable
🍅🍅 i think his amp is one of those cheap amps that weight like 4-5 kg and says 5x100wrms. the power supply in those wont even do 100wrms per channel with two channels driven. so his friend advice is good. since in those low cost amps. you could buy a used amp for very few $. and if it weights 12-15kg. its probably gonna be a whole lot better than that technics amp.
@@MrPeeBeeDeeBee They don't actually help with any of the electrical properties of the amplifier, but they do give a 100% Immersion Factor® in the celebral audio quality, guaranteed. They also sound best with wood grain effect speakers from the nostalgic 80s.
The weight of an amplifier tells us how much it's gonna cost to ship, and how much it's gonna hurt our backs moving it.
pegun and estimate the amount of times it’s dropped or rolls off of a Fed Ex/UPS hand truck.
Well, this weight-judgement certainly only works for regular class A/B amps. But there it works pretty well: A heavy one has obviously a bigger transformer and heatsinks in it, which tells us indeed something about power output! And it tells us something about build quality.
I don’t currently enjoy any of the class D amps I’ve listened to, even the new Nova series. That said, when you’re looking at class A or A/B amplifiers weight does give you a general idea of build quality. Audio by the pound is pretty accurate too, generally as weight goes up so does the price. More components, more time spend to assemble, etc.
Have you tried the Cyrus one very good
if you can't lift the amp with one arm...than its a good amp..
Well, yes and no. Heatsinks are a very important and necessary part of a high power amp and add a lotta weight. Back in 1979 I purchased a Hitachi (class G) SR-804 receiver rated at 50wpc with 3 dB of headroom. It weighs , due to class G amplification, under 25 pounds. Most, if not all, 50wpc receivers then weighed over 30 pounds with some near 40 pounds. So the weight thing ain't so important. My hifi speakers in use now are Ohm Acoustics models L (35 lbs ea.), model H (52 lbs ea.)and EPI-180 (62 lbs ea.), funny how that works. Really interesting topic and another great video.
Here goes one of.Paul famous deviations, WE love them Paul, keep it up!!😁👍✌
I think I read somewhere that Beats by Dr Dre headphones had metal weights inside that had no function but were just there to disguise the fact that they were largely made of lightweight cheap plastic to make them appear better quality than they actually are.
Yeah, Beats are a scam.
I had Beats Studio Pro a couple of years back, couldn't wear them longer than 30 minutes...
The question is about used older integrated analog Solid state A/B amps and there you can go normaly after weight. Most of the time the more heavy the amp is the more expensive and better parts was used. Thick Aluminium Chassis , big Transformator, big elkos Caps ,heatsink and and and. At least you can say it will sound better and will have more Power / Watts and normaly lower distorshion.
So the weight of the component doesn't matter except when it matters? OK, got it. 😂😂
Good is what is good for you. If you like classic music go for a good sounding analog amp and select it to match the rest of your equipment, especially the speakers, if you like to annoy your neighbourhood with rap or techno go for a max output and efficency class D. Spend an appropriate of money to each part of your equipment, the worst part will determine the sound quality.
What many people forget is the source. If your only source of music is the radio or highly compressed internet sources or mp3 dont waste your money on high end equipment: garbage in - garbage out.
Last not least: Listen to the music, not to friends, salesmen or phony reviews. (not saying a second opinion or some advice is useless)
If an amp weighs more because it has a big juicy toroidal transformer it will sound better than a lighter one with a regular transformer. But you'd have to look inside the case and also check if it has good capacitors, a clean layout... and I won't say much more because I'm out of my league. Although I'm an audio enthusiast my technical knowledge is not deep.
The big juicy toroidal transformer does not always lead to a better sounding unit than a regular transformer. If everything else is the same, probably, unless the regular one is already over kill. But if the lighter unit has a better design and higher quality parts, it probably will sound better than the unit with the brute transformer. It’s the overall design that matters.
S Wong Caps are quite light, even 100,000 micro Farad ones. I know from personal experience.
Weight is more indicative of quality in a speaker than in an amplifier,
and even there it's not a guarantee.
The care and skills that are put into the engineering of an audio product make the difference. Nowadays you can find a lot of audio products engineered by inexperienced newly graduated engineers in especially Southern China (mostly north of Shenzhen) having no sense of what audiophile performance actually means. For these products, don't get fooled by the looks and the weight as the engineering lacked the fundamental passion for perfecting the sound quality. PS Audio is in the other end of the scale with engineers having passion for audio.
The green ticket engineer is having a good week
Sounds about right👍
A Class D amp will often be light compared to a Class A or A/B. But if we only look at A/B amps the higher weight often tells us it has a big power supply and a good build.
I have 7ch (7x85w FTC or 2x 100w FTC all ch driven @ 20Hz-20kHz in 8ohms) surround reciver that weighs about 23-24kg and a 2ch (2x150w FTC both ch driven @ 20Hz-20kHz in 8ohms) stereo amp (with seperate inputs for use as a power amp) that weighs 19kg. The surround reciver has a "normal" but heavy 1480w power supply and a big heatsink and the stereo amp has 2x 500w (1000w total) toriodial transformers and 2 big heatsinks and it runs class A for the first watts and then class A/B for the rest.
But I could get the same performance from a Class D amp with half the weight. It's complicated to see the quality from the weight alone. There are so many factors that a person can go nuts😂 But back in the day weight was a good way to tell if it was a good or just a cheap amp. But that's just not the case anymore.
Went to the Capital Audiofest today; saw a few exhibitors using your Direct Stream DAC.
The fact that you would answer questions about another product without selling us your product is pretty great imo
Technics made and still makes some spectacular gear.
Heavier it is for any given power output the less efficient it is. Or its a tube amp, hehe
The board looks like a table of elements
I really appreciate Paul for his helpful YT videos and watch all of them. My equipment may not be of the the same high caliber as PS Audio but it is still very good. I have 2 each Amplifier Technologies Inc /ATI AT2505 amplifiers that weigh 105 pounds each. A lot of that is the 3Kv Toroidal Transformers. These amplifiers are rated at 250 @ 8 ohms and 375 @ 4 ohms X 5 channels all channels driven. They can draw 2400 watts each or more from the wall outlet and must be on their own dedicated 120v 20 amp outlets for which I use 10 gauge wiring instead of the 12 gauge wiring. One of the benefits of using Toroidal transformers vs conventional transformers is that Toroidals can be about only 60 percent of the size as conventional transformers to produce the same power therefor saving size and weight.
My heavyweight power amps have been a Crown DC300A ( doubles as a boat anchor ) and I owned a couple of 1st and 2nd generation Threshold power amps.
Now you're cookin' with gas!! Crown amps have been known to give hernias! :) Yes the weight does indicate quality casing and transformer (heat sinks, etc.) and usually means it delivers power, rather than publicizes it frivolously.
@G Guest You can always hang on to them in case of a hurricane !! ;)
@G Guest I used my DC-300A to drive a subwoofer. But alas it was time to change the power supply caps and that was gonna cost about $350. So I bought a Crown XLS1000, bridged it, and it works way better then the DC300A did. And cost about the same.
Could you explain audio wattage/voltage what type of power is produced, and why is that type of wattage expensive to produce with AC input power of 2400w at 120v. Years of playing with audio and knowledge of electricity that aspect has always been confusing.
clipping doesn't kill tweeters, excess power does. otherwise every tweeter would blow up when you test it with a battery.
A unit that severely clips at 20W will blow the tweeter far more quickly that a clean 100W. The clipping signal becomes a square wave, and square waves are murder on a tweeter. Far more power makes its way through the crossover.
@@doowopper1951 will you explain what's so special about square wave that makes it a tweeter killer?
@Larry Niles have you ever tried testing a tweeter with square wave? i guess not.
and why does square wave kill tweeters in one circumstance but not the other?
what do you think would happen if you drive a 20 watt tweeter with a 500 watt clean sine wave?
it's funny that Neil said it himself "Far more power makes its way through the crossover"
and before blaming clipping/square wave, do you even know the rated RMS power of your tweeters?
you need to use your brain more, guys. there's a reason they're rated in "watt".
Ped-Away-G
Please tell me you are not actually hooking a battery up to a tweeter!
@@juliaset751 why not? it's a simple way to test a speaker driver. a single regular battery is capable of only a few watts, it's not gonna hurt even the most fragile tweeters you can ever find on the market.
My heaviest amps were 110lb monoblocks. After owning these I swore I would no longer own any equipment I can't lift. Speakers excepted. My current amps are only 65lbs each, and Class A. Do they have large heatsinks? Yes they do. If you measure across the top of the amp it is about 18" wide, but the actual chassis is around 10". The weight of the heat sinks is nothing compared to the giant power transformer inside. Probably half of the weight is right there. They idle at 400 watts, and draw 400 watts at full power. Do they heat up the room? Would four, 100 watt light bulbs heat a room? Hardly, but it would make for one rocking Easy Bake oven. How about my power bills? I figure they cost about 1 cent per hour to operate. That's not going to bankrupt anyone. At least no one who can afford these amps. By the way, my 150 watt, Class AB tube monoblocks put out a lot more heat than the Class A amps.
It tells us the manufacturer wants a big price for it so dig very deep in your pocket because if you want it you have to pay for it and through the nose 😩
Paul, you should introduce your team to a website called trello, you can create multiple boards like the one that the engineers use. One of the good things is that teams could be in different locations and login to see the same up to date board.
Yes, we know Trello. This physical board seems to work better for everyone because of the commonality it brings to the morning meeting. When you use Trello everyone remains in their little cubicle and no one talks to each other.
Mine separates weight 32 kg / about 50 pounds. Pure made in japan quality
Knowing "weight matters" I suppose some sleazy "designers" can simply add compartments and fill them with sand and seal! If they get busted I guess they would say their Silicon Valley approach "adds enhanced full resonance stability." If you live in a flood zone, and the water is rising, well you might lose the amps anyway, BUT you'll need one less sand bag for protection!
If you are limited on budget and need much power, buy a Crown XLS power amp. They gives much good power for little money.
The main thing the weight of an amp tells you is whether or not it’ll be hard to lift. Speaking of lifting, what’s the use of weightlifting? The weights are in the same place they were when you started, and you’re just sore afterwards.
What DOES the weight of an amplifier tell us?
What IS the answer? I mean, WHAT IS the answer? WHAT'S the answer?
Mine weighs 12kg......Marantz PM7200
40 to 50 kg about 85 to 110 pounds
I have a Onkyo receiver that has plenty of power and sounds great but it likes to get hot. I did a home made cooling fan system that worked so so until it broke so I bought a Aircom. Hoping my hot receiver issues are over. I've had it open before and though it need more heatsink.
I repair some amplifier before it's made in china... And it's heavy, when i open it i saw a large block of square plastic, inside of that plastic is a cement,.. And the purpose of that is just to gain weight of the amplifier,..
Hopefully that's rare. I have never seen that.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio I encountered a lot of that Crappy Amplifier,.. Some spec's are unbelievable,.. The manual say's 450W into 8Ohms,.. But when i test it to my bench it's only 28Vrms Before clipping into 8 Ohms Load,.. I think there's no such kind of Crappy Amplifier for sale in you're Country Sir,. Because there's a lot of nice Audio company in you're country including PS Audio,.. And also there are so many Audio Enthusiast that build their own speaker ang power amplifier out their...
I despise everything made in china. I buy only made in japan stuff from Golden era of hi-fi. Cement inside, oh watch chinese have their own ideas after all loooooool
the weight tells us how big the transformer is, and who says all the time that a big transformer is a kid in a candy shop? you my friend, so heavier = better
What does a taste of the amplifier tell us?
_A lot._ But for an even better indicator, look at the _price._ 💰💸
Some OCD Board goodness.
A heavy case and transformer with rubbish electronics will sound rubbish. Not that many manufacturers would produce such a product.
Being an engineer myself it looks like you guys follow the Agile product development process? I’m familiar with that white board
Technology has changed over the last few years.
Then introduction of switching power supplies has made the weight question meaningless.
There's several Class D (mostly) amplifiers from highly respected manufacturers, that are less than 10 kg and yet, sound sublime.
This of course does not apply for tube amplification where, the weight of the power transformer as well as the pair of output ones make the component rather heavy.
Low wattage amplifiers are not going to hurt your speakers 20 watts or 30 Watts per channel is 20 RMS is fine. just don't look for an amplifier that has thin plating chasing but beefy one millimetre Steel casing and aluminium bottom
@Larry Niles yes very cheap quality amplifier maybe but if it's got a decent power supply shouldn't be a problem, when the power supplies struggles is the issue! and you can't really listen above 10 watts RMS anyway that would be uncomfortable
The weight tells not so much. Because some new amplifiers are very light but still very good and powerful.
So all the engineers are men but the project manager is a woman... ?
🍅🍅 i think his amp is one of those cheap amps that weight like 4-5 kg and says 5x100wrms. the power supply in those wont even do 100wrms per channel with two channels driven.
so his friend advice is good. since in those low cost amps. you could buy a used amp for very few $. and if it weights 12-15kg. its probably gonna be a whole lot better than that technics amp.
I'm guessing you don't know much about Technics amps.
here we go, yeah just like any other brand, they make crap and good ones. but i doubt he has a good one
Well then there's Class D..
I got some bricks to sell ya, only £150 each! (plus p&p)
@Fat Rat There are no Toriodal transformers in my bricks
Solid sound?
@@MrPeeBeeDeeBee They don't actually help with any of the electrical properties of the amplifier, but they do give a 100% Immersion Factor® in the celebral audio quality, guaranteed. They also sound best with wood grain effect speakers from the nostalgic 80s.
Are they cryo treated.😀 must get those molecules aligned.😂
@@r423sdex They are "cryo" treated for better electrical conductivity in the crystal matrix.