How Do Car Audio Amplifiers Work?

[ndnbolla]

Hello everyone.

I have been roaming around these forums but just finally decided to join. I did not exactly know where to post this so bare with me if you will.

Anyways, I am in my second freshman semester as an EE undergrad and I am taking Honors Physics II.

As a requirement of this course I must write up a 10-page paper as well as a 5 min PowerPoint Presentation.

What I wanted help with was what my topic should be about. The professor said it must be related to something we learned this year and so I would like to do something with circuitry. I am a big fan of car audio, and so I wanted to talk specifically about amps and how they function.

Do you think how an amp functions would be a suitable topic for my situation? What type of theory would you suggest is related to how an amp functions in converting basic voltage into 500-1000 watts?

 

[berkeman]

Holy smokes! 1000W in a car?! Stay away from my son, okay!? :-)

Anyway, you could talk about the electronic amp itself for your project, but I think it would be a much more interesting paper if you talked about the whole system of CD Player, Audio Power Amp, Speaker System, and Car Acoustics. After all, if all the components aren't designed correctly, you aren't going to get great sound for the car passengers. Well, at 1000W, your passengers will be deaf anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter (J/K again).

Maybe start out looking at the physics of each of these components, and start outlining a paper about the individual parts and how they play together to make great sound in a car. Like, how do the bandwidth of the preamp, poweramp, speakers, and car acoustics combine to give passengers a great 3-D image of the music?

And in case I sound like an old fuddy-duddy, I've lit up a lot of parties with my Carver Cube power amp and speakers :-)

 

[ndnbolla]

So I thought a little more about it.

I've narrowed it down to something of the nature of how electrical current and sound are related to each other and the roles they play in amplifiers and speakers.