What is the Peak Current of the GamuT D 200?

This specification has attracted a lot of attention lately. Basically a loudspeaker demands a higher current if it has a lower impedance. The lowest impedance we have measured in a pair of hi-fi loudspeakers is 6/10 Ohm. A power amplifier giving 200W in 8 Ohm will have an internal voltage of about 70-90V. So the maximum current according to Ohms law will be 90V divided by 6/10 Ohm or 150A peak. The GamuT D 200 will work down to a 1.5 Ohm impedance, with 70V supply that gives a maximum of 47A peak. However, you should always read what they write using very small print. How long a time and at which frequency did they test? Typically, they write 1mS pulse at 1kHz, but some write 10uS pulse at 100kHz. ( 1uS is 1/1.000.000 second, 1mS is 1/1.000 second) Now, normal output transistors can survive an extremely high current providing it is only sustained for a very short time. So claiming 200A peak for 10uS at 100kHz does nothing for your music. It is an extremely short time interval; a bass drum kick is at 70Hz and lasts about 30mS, or 3,000 times longer than 10uS!! Even the standard 1mS test is too short by a factor of 30. And many music peaks last for 300mS. This is a classic example of specifications illusioning, trying to prove you are better by giving a useless and irrelevant but nonetheless impressive specification. Some have even used peak to peak, which is an easy way of improving the specification from 100A to 200A without improving the amplifier! So we prefer just to write the minimum loudspeaker impedance our protection circuit will allow. We could write 47A peak, but without the above-mentioned long explanation, this would give a wrong impression compared to somebody claiming 200 Ampere peak-to-peak for 10uS. Please also note that 47A peak is only 1/6th of the 300A peak rating of a SINGLE MOSFET device. So we are using only a small part of its capacity to ensure it is not strained by the even largest music transient.

GamuT International A/S · Navervej 6 · DK-7430 Ikast · Denmark · Phone: +45 70 20 22 68 · Fax: +45 59 43 97 26 · E-mail: info@gamutaudio.com