To close out our series of educational articles on amplifier specifications, we are going to talk about operating voltage limits and, by association, the protection circuits built into a car audio amplifier. In the good old days of electrical systems that were composed of an alternator, battery, switches and a couple of relays, delivering a […]

If you are thinking about having your local mobile enhancement retailer add a subwoofer amplifier to your car or truck, you may want to ask them about the remote level or bass boost control options that are available. Being able to adjust the amount of bass your system produces from the driver’s seat allows you […]

We are at our second-to-last article in our car audio amplifier specification series and this time, we are going to talk about Class AB amplifier crossover distortion. This distortion has nothing to do with the high- or low-pass filters built into your amplifier; it’s a problem with the very concept of the Class B amplifier […]

It’s time to look at the input stage of how a modern car audio amplifier works. The input stage is responsible for interfacing with your radio and provides features like the gain control, crossovers, bass boost, remote level control and signal summing that your installer will use to make your stereo system sound great and […]

Whether the sound system in your car or truck is bone stock or upgraded with premium amplifiers, speakers and subwoofers, the system’s maximum volume may not directly coincide with turning the knob up all the way. The short and sweet of why this happens is something called gain overlap. This conscious and deliberate design decision […]

We’ve talked about car audio amplifier features and specifications at great length, but up to this point, we haven’t discussed how a car audio amplifier works. In this article, we’ll provide a simple overview of how the power supply in your mobile amplifier can take the 12 volts supplied by your electrical system and convert […]

As we slowly approach the end of our latest Understanding Specifications series, we want to take a look at car audio amplifier distortion ratings and explain what they mean. We should make it clear: No matter how or good or bad a piece of audio equipment is, every audio component adds some amount of distortion […]