User guide

ManualsBrandsGilderfluke&Co ManualsAudioAmp-50 Class D Stereo Audio Amplifier

Amp-50 Conﬁguration & Installation

Before the Amp-50 can be used, you will need to attach speakers, power supply and a line

level audio source.

Speaker Outputs:

The Amp-50 is a ‘Class-

D’ design. Its efﬁciency is

near 90%. If you feed 50

Watts of 24 vdc into the

Amp-50’s ampliﬁer, you

will get almost 50 Watts

into your speakers. ‘Lin-

ear’ ampliﬁers have only

about 20% efﬁciency.

Fully 80% of the power

you put into them goes

into the heatsink as waste

heat. A 50 Watt linear

ampliﬁer would only feed

10 Watts of power into

your speakers, and 40

Watts into the heatsink.

This makes the Amp-

50’s ampliﬁer roughly

equivalent to what

would be a 200 Watt

linear ampliﬁer!

If you are going to run

your speakers at high

SPLs, you will need to select speakers that can

handle at least a 100 Watts or more continuous

power. Smaller speakers may clip or be damaged if

run at too high an output power level from the Amp-

50.

The ampliﬁer outputs from the Amp-50 can be used

with speakers of four to eight ohms impedance. As

with any ampliﬁer, you can series/parallel any num-

ber of speakers, so long as the impedance remains

within limits.

The Amp-50 is well protected from short circuits and

overheating. You can stick a screwdriver right

across the speaker terminals! The Amp-50 will go

back to work a moment after a fault is removed. If

the speaker impedance is too low and you are run-

ning at a high volume level, the ampliﬁer may start

to cut out. If you hear this, check the power supply

voltage. If the input voltage is dropping, you might

simply be drawing too much power for the power

supply and a larger supply may ﬁx your problem. If

the power supply is OK, and you can’t increase the

speaker impedance, then you might simply be ask-

ing too much of the Amp-50’s ampliﬁer, and need to

turn down the volume a tad.

To comply with FCC and CE standards for radio fre-

quency emissions, you should use conduit or

shielded speaker wires with the Amp-50. The shield

should be attached to the power supply ‘negative’

terminal, which is immediately adjacent to the

speaker terminals. Shielding the speaker lines will

not affect the sound quality from the Amp-50, but

will make the FCC and CE folks happy. Shielded

speaker lines were used during all CE/FCC certiﬁca-

tion testing.

Bridged Ampliﬁer: If you need

a mono output with more

‘oomph’, the Amp-50 can be

‘bridged’. Bridging will

only have an effect with

lower impedance speak-

ers You won’t hear a bit

of difference if you are

using an eight ohm

speaker. The only audio

which is ampliﬁed comes

from the ‘left’ input. The

wiring to ‘bridge’ the am-

pliﬁer is a little different

than on a linear ampliﬁer.

The speaker is wired in

parallel to both right and

left speaker outputs, and

the jumper inside the Amp-

50 is moved to the ‘bridged’ posi-

tion. Wiring the speakers for a

‘bridged’ output with-

out moving this

jumper can damage

the Amp-50.

Gilderfluke & Co.• 205 South Flower Street • Burbank, California 91502 • 818/840–9484 • 800/776–5972 • fax 818/840–9485

East Coast/Florida Office • 7041 Grand National Drive • Suite 128d • Orlando, Fl. 32819 • 407/354–5954 • fax 407/354–5955

Amp-50

Gilderfluke & Company

Burbank, California

Left Right

Line In Line In VolumeVolume

Right Left

12-24 vdc

Power

(4Ω to 8Ω)

Speakers

Line Level

Source