Leo's Blog
Amplifier Placement
Many people talk about speaker placement, and I agree this is very important. However, amplifier placement is also important. Why? It affects the damping factor at the speaker’s terminals. Why is damping factor important? The damping factor of an amplifier tells you how well it can control the...
How To Calculate Audio System Noise
Product specifications often list the signal-to-noise ratio, sometimes written as “SNR” or “S/N,” but what does it mean? While the math behind SNR is technical, the concept is not, and this value can impact a system’s overall sound quality. SNR compares the level of a signal to the level of noise....
How Much Amplifier Power Do I Need?
I cannot tell you the number of times I have heard a conversation about amplifier power go like this: “I hear that B&W speakers need at least 400W,” or, “I heard that Paradigm speakers are very power-hungry.” The fact is, there IS a way to figure out how much power your...
What is a DAC and why do I need/want one?
Want better sound quality from your phone/laptop/tablet/MP3 player? You need a dedicated DAC. What is a DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter)? All data/media on your phone/computer/tablet is stored in a digital format (comprised of 0s and 1s). This includes all of your audio files (FLAC, mp3, AIFF,...