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Re: amplifier's Damping-Factor?

Posted by Thorsten on September 14, 1999 at 04:11:24

In Reply to: amplifier's Damping-Factor? posted by Mart on September 13, 1999 at 21:04:14:

Hi there,

Damping Factor is totally over-rated.

The Electrical damping of the Drivers relies not only on the Output Resistance (or Impedance) but is actually the DC resistance of the voice-coil in series with the Output Impedance of the Amplifier, to the mechanical impedance at resonance.

At any extent, damping-factors from the Amplifier beyound about 4 begin to approach the area of diminishing returns.

What is worse is that that the Voicecoil DC Resistance is Temperature dependent. If you apply more power, the Voice-Coil heats up, increases in resistance and hence the electrical damping is further reduced.

Even worse, if the Amplifier uses NFB and is overdriven (as it often happens on bass peaks) it's output impedance sky-rockts temporarily.

So all in all, along with Power measured at 1kHz and 0.1% THD, the THD Specification itself and many other of these neat numbers, Damping Factor is meaningless....

If it makes you sleep better at night, select an amplifier with high damping factor. I personally select one that actually sounds good.

Ciao Thorsten

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