Getting the most from your amplifier

A few hints and tips to get the most from your amplifier - the heart of your system.

Switch on about half an hour or an hour before use, this will allow components to warm up and stabilise to a normal working temperature and work at their optimum. Some amplifiers may need several hours.

A good quality hi-fi rack can help you get the most from your electronics. Sideboards and cupboards will resonate, passing these vibrations through to the electronics. This will affect mechanical devices more so than solid state ones, but some manufacturers believe that electronic circuits can be influenced by vibration.

Make sure your amplifier is sitting flat - some surfaces may not be even, which could exaggerate any vibration caused by transformers.

Unplug and plug back in all of your connections every six months or so. This will help keep contacts clean. It may or may not produce a noticeable difference, but worth doing anyway.

You may be forced to use a mains adaptor for all components, but try and give amplifiers their own mains socket.

Give the amplifier some breathing space. Don't place items on top of it - this will cause the amplifier to run hotter than it should and shorten it's life span as components will be running hotter than they're designed to. This may not be quite so much of an issue during winter, but certainly increases temperature excessively during the hotter, summer months.

Further to the above, be careful when placing amplifiers in cabinets or enclosed spaces. Make sure there's adequate ventilation, and avoid placing items on top of it. Modern Class D based streaming amplifiers will be less affected by this, but it would still be recommended to be cautious.

Try and keep interconnect cables away from mains cables where possible in order to cut down on possible interference between the two.

Regardless of 'watts per channel', the safe maximum output of most conventional amplifiers is about half way (12 o'clock) on a conventional "non linear" volume control (old style ones that go from 0-10 with a start and end stop). You may need to go higher than this if your speakers aren't very efficient, but with average sensitivity speakers, the amp shouldn't really be exceeding that 12 o'clock position. If you find yourself getting towards the 2 o'clock position or further, you need a more powerful amplifier, or more efficient speakers for the space you have to satisfy your listening levels.

If you're getting a random hum from the amplifier itself, this could be DC noise. Most amplifiers filter this out, but some don't, in order to preserve sound quality. Not everyone will suffer from it, but if you do, there are DC blockers that can be purchased to filter it out.

Just a small thing, but depending on build quality, the top of the outer case many amplifiers tends to ring or vibrate when tapped - placing something with a bit of weight on this will stop this. It's debatable as to whether this will make any difference to the amplifier itself (opinions vary, as always), but might be worth considering, particularly on budget amplifiers where this effect is worse. Be careful not to block any ventilation holes though.

There are an increasing number of amplifiers with onboard digital room correction. This shouldn't be used as a tool to fix an underperforming system. Correct speaker placement and system set up should still be performed, with the EQ being the cherry on the top to tidy things up.

Feel free to contact us for any advice.

davidf

info@thelittleaudiostore.co.uk

david@thelittleaudio.company