What gives the amp power?

Every amplifier takes in some kind of input signal (a certain current and voltage, which, together multiply to give a certain power level) and produces a bigger output signal (which may have a different current, voltage, or power).

What happens if AMP is not powerful enough?

If you dont have a powerful enough amplifier to reach the volume levels you want, you can damage the speakers by feeding them too much high-frequency energy by driving the amplifier into clipping. Its the extra power in these harmonics that damages speakers.

What is a high gain amplifier?

A high gain distortion amp is just that. Tweaked for heavy gain. JCM-900, Dual Rectifier, etc, etc. It will provide a highly distorted or overdriven tone at quiet to loud volume, any volume setting. They will often have a clean channel, though.

What if my amp is too powerful?

Amplifiers can be too powerful for speakers. As a general rule, if the amplifier produces more electrical energy than the speakers can handle, it may cause distortion or clipping, but damage is unlikely.

Is my amp powerful enough for speakers?

To sum up, in general the lower a speaker is rated in ohms the better the speaker probably is, but you better have a significant amount of power, at least 100 watts as you approach 4 ohms, to play it. Conversely, if a speaker is rated at 8 ohms you can play it easily with 50 watts and it should sound fine.

Does gain affect sound quality?

To recap, volume is a control of the loudness at the output of a sound system and has no affect on quality, while gain lets you increase the loudness inside of an audio system, which absolutely determines the quality of the sound or recording.

Is gain the same as distortion?

gain is the amplification factor, basically the ratio of output over input. the more you turn the gain knob up, the more overdrive/distortion you get, basically. Distortion is just more extreme overdrive. Both the 5150 and vh4 are high gain amps, and both are capable of producing distortion.

What happens if gain is too high?

When its turned up too high, the other person sounds distorted and is difficult to comprehend. Amp gains work the same way – too low, and the background noise, or “hiss” takes over Too high, and music becomes distorted even at a normal volume level.

Is gain used for distortion?

Setting the gain control sets the level of distortion in your tone, regardless of how loud the final volume is set. What this means is that your gain setting determines how clean or dirty your sound is regardless of the master volume setting.

Is it better to overpower or Underpower speakers?

Speaker replacement is also the single most cost-effective car stereo upgrade you can perform. Its better to overpower a speaker than to underpower it — the distortion caused when you push a low-powered amp or receiver to its limit is much more likely to harm a speaker than too much power.