"wheres the beef?"

[RickH]

I was recently looking at 2 integrated amps in my ever growing collection of stuff. Neither was anything at all special...just a couple of low fi integrated amps. The first was a Pioneer SA 1050. I have been told this piece is rated at 50 watts. The second was an optonica SM3201, also rated at around 50 watts per channel. I took the covers off of both..just to see the difference...and wow! I can't imagine how these two units could possibly be similar in out put. Maybe someone can explain this. The pioneer had 4 caps on the power board. 2 of them were 10,000 uf and the other two were 6800 uf. There were eight I guess you would call them power output devices that were screwed to the heat sink. The optonica had one "dual" 6800 x 2 uf cap and 2 squarish larger power devices screwed to its heat sink. The pioneer was also considerably heavier and the power supply transformer was slightly larger than the optonica. Can someone explain to me how those two pieces could have aprox. the same power rating...and what are the differences between the power outputs on the pioneer,little square things with threee prongs soldered to the board,each had a similar one next to it with a solid piece of metal on the top. And the two larger square blocks on the optonica ?
I realize thats a lot to ask...but I would like to be able to look at things like this and come to some semi intelligent conclusion as to the power/quality of similarly rated components. Thanks in advance!!

 

[WmAx]

I was recently looking at 2 integrated amps in my ever growing collection of stuff. Neither was anything at all special...just a couple of low fi integrated amps. The first was a Pioneer SA 1050. I have been told this piece is rated at 50 watts. The second was an optonica SM3201, also rated at around 50 watts per channel. I took the covers off of both..just to see the difference...and wow! I can't imagine how these two units could possibly be similar in out put. Maybe someone can explain this. The pioneer had 4 caps on the power board. 2 of them were 10,000 uf and the other two were 6800 uf. There were eight I guess you would call them power output devices that were screwed to the heat sink. The optonica had one "dual" 6800 x 2 uf cap and 2 squarish larger power devices screwed to its heat sink. The pioneer was also considerably heavier and the power supply transformer was slightly larger than the optonica. Can someone explain to me how those two pieces could have aprox. the same power rating...and what are the differences between the power outputs on the pioneer,little square things with threee prongs soldered to the board,each had a similar one next to it with a solid piece of metal on the top. And the two larger square blocks on the optonica ?
I realize thats a lot to ask...but I would like to be able to look at things like this and come to some semi intelligent conclusion as to the power/quality of similarly rated components. Thanks in advance!!

This really means nothing. The Pioneer could for example be a standard AB class amplifier and the Optonica could be a switching class amplifier; meaning the Optonica could easily produce as much or more power than the Pioneer despite the smaller / lower weight parts. From your description of the output devices on the Optonica, it sounds like these are integrated circuit devices, and a strong chance these are switching modules - though I have no knowledge whatsoever of the Optonica. The Optonica could also be a standard AB class amp, and be poorly built and the specifications of power exaggerated. I am merely explaining theoretical scenarios of plausibility. You can't simply go by size/weight; you have to know many other things before a guess can be made.

-Chris

 

[Seth=L]

I doubt Optonica used any switching amplifiers. Optonica "was" the high end division of Sharp about two decades ago.