Is Amplifier Weight an Indicator of Robust Amplifier Design?
You have to find out if the amplifier is a Class A/B analog amp or a Class D digital amplifier before you can generalize about weight and amplifier quality. The appearance of high-quality digital amplifiers such as the Axiom A1400-8 has changed the equation. Digital Class D amplifiers are much more efficient (90% or more) than analog Class A/B amplifiers (about 50% efficient). As such, digital amps tend to run much cooler and therefore do not require the heavy heat sinks associated with high-powered analog amplifiers, hence the overall weight of a digital amp may not be a reliable indicator of its intrinsic quality. For instance, Axiom’s eight-channel digital A1400-8 has received superb reviews. And while it’s not exactly light (58 lbs), it still weighs much less than its multi-channel analog competitors whose output power is often about 200 watts per channel, yet typically weigh from 90 to 125 pounds. Moreover, as an 8-channel power amp, the A1400-8 is much more compact than many anal
