How to Select the Best Audio Amplifier for Your Design

With the ever changing requirements in the audio market, there have been many advancements in audio amplifier topologies. Knowing the types of audio amplifiers available and the characteristics associated with them is essential in selecting the best audio amp IC for your application.

An audio amplifier increases the amplitude of a small signal to a useful level, all the while maintaining the smaller signal's detail. This is known as linearity. The greater the amplifier linearity, the more the output signal is a true representation of the input.

With the ever-changing performance requirements for amplifiers in the audio market, there have been many advances in audio amplifier topologies. Consequently, designers must know the types of audio amplifiers available and the characteristics associated with each. This is the only way to ensure that you select the best audio amp for an application. In this tutorial, we examine the most important characteristics of each class of audio amp available today: Class A, Class B, Class AB, Class D, Class G, Class DG, and Class H.