20W Stereo Amplifier Circuit Diagram

Amplifiers which run from 12V DC generally dont put out much power and they are
usually not hifi as well. But this little stereo amplifier ticks the power and low
distortion boxes. With a 14.4V supply, it will deliver 20 watts per channel into 4-ohm
loads at clipping while harmonic distortion at lower power levels is typically less than
0.03%.
This is an ideal project for anyone wanting a compact stereo amplifier that can run
from a 12V battery. It could be just the ticket for buskers who want a small but gutsy
amplifier which will run from an SLA battery or it could used anywhere that 12V DC is
available in cars, recreational vehicles, remote houses with 12V DC power or
where ever.

20W Stereo Audio Amplifier

Because it runs from DC, it will be an ideal beginners or schoolies project, with no
240VAC power supply to worry about. You can run it from a 12V battery or a DC
plugpack. But while it may be compact and simple to build, there is no need to
apologise for just average performance. In listening tests from a range of compact
discs, we were very impressed with the sound quality.
Long-time readers might recall that we presented a similar 12V power amplifier
design back in May 2001. It was a similar configuration to this one but it is now
completely over-shadowed by the much lower distortion and greatly improved signalto-noise ratio of this new design. In fact, lets be honest: the previous unit is not a
patch on this new design. It used two TDA1519A ICs which resulted in distortion
figures above 1% virtually across the board and a signal-to-noise ratio of only -69dB
unweighted.
However, by using the TDA7377 power amplifier IC and making some other
improvements, the THD (total harmonic distortion) of the new design is about 50

times better than the older unit (see performance graphs for details). The bottom line
is that the THD under typical conditions is around just 0.03% or less. It is also able to
deliver more output power due to the improved output transistors in the new power
amplifier IC.
In addition, its idle power consumption is low not much more than 1W. As a result,
if you dont push it too hard it will run cool and wont drain the battery too quickly. And
because the IC has self-protection circuitry, its just about indestructible. It will selflimit or shut down if it overheats and the outputs are deactivated if they are shorted.
Circuit diagram:

20W Stereo Amplifier Circuit Diagram

With a 12V supply, the largest voltage swing a conventional solid-state power
amplifier can generate is 6V. This results in a meagre 4.5W RMS into 4O and
2.25W RMS into 8O, without considering losses in the output transistors. Even if the
DC supply is around 14.4V (the maximum that can normally be expected from a 12V
car battery), that only brings the power figures up to 6.48W and 3.24W for 4O and
8O loads respectively still not really enough.
There are three common solutions to this problem. The first is to boost the supply
voltage using a switchmode DC converter. This greatly increases the cost and
complexity of the amplifier but it is one way of getting a lot of power from a 12V
supply. However, we wanted to keep this project simple and that rules out this
technique.
There are variations on the boosting method, such as the class H architecture used
in the TDA1562Q IC featured in the Portapal PA Amplifier (SILICON CHIP, February
2003). It is able to achieve 40W/channel but with >0.1% THD. In that case, the
amplifier output itself provides the switching for a charge pump. The second method
is to lower the speaker impedance. Some car speakers have an impedance as low
as 2O, which allows twice as much power to be delivered at the same supply
voltage. However, we dont want to restrict this amplifier to 2O loudspeakers.