Power is a measure of the amount of work that is being done at a given point in time. If there were a tractor pulling a plow (or any other device doing work) at a given rate of speed, it is doing a certain amount of work. The actual amount of work being done is determined by the load presented by the plow (the amount of soil being turned) and the rate that the tractor is pulling it. To pull the plow faster, the tractor's engine has to produce more power.
The power that an amplifier can produce is determined by the load presented by the speaker's voice coil and the amount of electrical force that the amp can apply to the woofer's voice coil. I'll go into more detail on these topics (amplifiers, electrical power, speakers, speaker loads... NOT tractors :-) later in this tutorial. In the following demo, you can see that the cone only moves a little at low power but more at high power. Click on the blue buttons to go from high power to low power.
Note:
It seems that most everyone wants to get the most power from their car audio amplifiers. Later chapters will cover just how to maximize the output from your amplifier.
Click HERE to visit a friend's new car audio tech site.
If you find a problem with this page or feel that some part of it needs
clarification,
E-mail
me.
