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The stereo mode is 80 watts per channel. A buyer at this price cannot complain that the amp doesn't have internal circuits that detect and turn on and off the amp when a signal comes in like a high grade amp either. And if you have big bucks you can go for a high grade amp but In these troubled economic times many of us may not be able to spend alot on amps anymore; so this may be a good solution for your home theater mono amp needs. You must manually turn on the amp and set a baaic volume control on the right control knob. You don't have to set the volume control everytime however.
I do not recommend using any but a much more powerful amp on a 4 ohm speaker. This amp provided the solution through it's bridging switch. I am running kef iq's speakers and they demand good clean power and if you don't put enough power into them you can clip them. So running a speaker with not enough power is a far greater risk to it than having a more powerful amplifier run a speaker. But that's a small price to pay for a great little amp that can run a kef center speaker and do it well for this price. It depends on how loud you want your speaker. I wouldn't be afraid to run a much more expensive speaker that needs 200 watts or less on this amp either.
Audio Source has a few of these at decent prices. However if you have a speaker that needs more than 200 watts then I think you are better served with a higher wattage amp. Still Audio Source should be applauded for giving people a inexpensive amp that performs very well as a mono amp with 200 watts power. I have looked for a while for a affordable mono amp that was not short on power. I am using a Sunfire amp to run the other five speakers and that is a expensive 5 channel amp. This amp has 200 watts at 8 ohms bridged this allowed me to put a effective amp for my sixth and rear speaker. Clipping occurs when you turn up a speaker and the amp cannot provide the power they need.
Most speakers are run at 8 ohms but some aren't so I would check your speaker first before buying this amp.
It runs cool to the touch, amd has very adequate heatsinking. This one is the same specs, except it has output meters (and x10 sensitivity), dual switchable speaker outs, and a soft-clip circuit. Heavy toroidal transformer and discrete output transistors. And at much lower volumes, this amp never loses composure. Otherwise, the build quality was very nice. It also drove a pair of a/d/s L-1290/2s in stereo and also was pressed into center channel duty in bridged mode. Bias and dc-offset was spot on, even after probably 10-15 years.This thing has well exceeded my expectations.
I currently use it to drive a pair of Klipsch KG4s and it will run me out of the room if I want to push it hard. This is actually a review for the AmpOne (not the /A version). I had to replace the meter lights and re-epoxy the meter scales in place in the meters. I have been very impressed. I picked mine up off of Craigslist. I have never had the protection engage and the soft-clip gives me some peace of mind with kids in the house.Highly recommended
They did great. However, you do have to manually power each one up and down with the button on the front. Not a huge deal, but it adds to the steps one must take. These work great in bridged (mono) mode. I ran three across the front of my home theaters in mono mode (one for each of my three front speakers). I took them out of my theater, only b/c my receiver does a good job by itself and I did not have room for any more plugs in a new (old) house we bought.
We purchased an identical amplifier locally because of time constraints. We returned the amp and purchased a completely different amp in slightly higher price range from a different manufacturer.
When connected to the 5-ohm load it worked but got extremely hot and we shut it down. We double checked the ohm load and it was 5-ohms.
We purchased this amplifier to drive a 5-ohm load based on the manufacturers claim of a low impedance 4-ohm capability. The new amp worked fine.
The unit arrived dead out of the box. Amazon promptly credited us and provided a return label.
The audiosource is OK for a basic, small 8-ohm load and does not have the low impedance characteristics advertised by the manufacturer.
Anyway, back to the review. This stereo receiver bragged that it produced 100 Watts per channel for four channel. In fact, they recommend that one keeps the amps turned all the way up at all times and simply adjust the input signal volume. I bought two of these amps to power my four speaker.
The sad thing is it is legal to so do. I have four bookshelf speakers that were being power by a stereo receiver. This is what I do an it works well. Believe me as I am a physicist, they are pretty wacky in the audio business. That means I am running 80 Watts into each speaker.
To calculate power, one uses the formula Power=V^2/R, where V is the RMS voltage and R is the resistance of the circuit or load. This means they can claim any power.
This should be quieter than my old receiver, but it is not. It is much louder because these amps actually put out a real 160 Watts as opposed to my old stereo receiver which most likely put out 50 Watts per channel.Also, the signal to noise seems excellent.
These are the first amps I have owned where if I run a clean signal in and turn the volume all the way up, I do not hear a hiss coming out of my speakers. I have owned two of these amps for almost a year now and I am very fond of them.
Sorry this is getting a bit technical, but the moral of the story is the audio industry feels free to choose R at will. So, supposedly each of my speakers was getting 100 Watts of power.
However, power in the audio industry is not well defined. I am very satisfied this this product.
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