Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater how can the samson amp tht svs sells be so small

it is that small but does 1000 watts ,if that is posible than why is all the other amps {adcom,denon,and on and on}so big,and what are disadvanages?

Dan, you should first note from the specs that the amp actually delivers "only" a little over 300 watts per channel into 8 ohms. A major factor in the size and weight of a high-powered amp is the need to dissipate heat. Note that the Samson uses bipolar transistors which generate less heat than MOSFETs and that it relies on fans to aid in cooling. A MOSFET amp of similar power which relies on bigger heat sinks for cooling by convection would be significantly heavier and bigger. Ignoring claims about superiority of one type of operation over the other, I'd think that the only factor might be possible noisiness of the cooling fans, although the claim is that the fans are"ultra-quiet"(also note that they offer the fanless Crown amp which makes the lack of noise a prominent point).

I have the samson amp and it puts out HUGE power to my dual DIY AV12 subs. I can make the whole house shake and I only have the gain up half way.

The fans are quiet, however, any noise is too much for HT. I ended up putting mine in the room below my HT to get rid of the fan sound even though I could really only hear it with everything off.

BTW, The samson servo amps use no fans.

You have it in the room below?...you mean the amp and the sub or just the amp. If you have the sub and amp in another room what is the SPL level of that sub that you can hear it from the room below. I hope your structure is made out of concrete or steel.

In reply to:

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Note that the Samson uses bipolar transistors which generate less heat than MOSFETs...

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John, I didn't know that. Just out of curiosity, is it generally true that MOSFETs dissipate more heat than bipolars under similar bias conditions (i.e., everything else being equal)? Or is it perhaps because MOSFET amp designs tend to involve a shallower bias, making them more toward Class A and away from Class B?

Masa, I'm sure that your reference to the overall operation scheme is more accurate than my shorthand use of "generate" to explain more heat dissipation. The only reference used was this brief discussion of the two types of transistors and heat.

there's actually a pretty good site here:

http://users.telenet.be/educypedia/electronics/amplifierclasses.htm

pretty lengthy descriptions, but good.

I looked at the line that says:

Amplificateur classe B en Français

and started to crack up. Anyone else a Simpsons fan?

Sub out RCA is about 10' long. It goes down through the floor and to the Samson on a high shelf in my laundry room. The 10 gauge speaker wires go from there to the back of my living room (about 30' of wire) where the subs sit behind my couch.