Piezoelectric audio amplifier

An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the power of a signal (a time-varying voltage or current). An amplifier uses electric power from a power supply to increase the amplitude of a signal. The amount of amplification provided by an amplifier is measured by its gain: the ratio of output to input. An amplifier is a circuit that can give a power gain greater than one.

An amplifier can either be a separate piece of equipment or an electrical circuit contained within another device. Amplification is fundamental to modern electronics, and amplifiers are widely used in almost all electronic equipment. Amplifiers can be categorized in different ways. One is by the frequency of the electronic signal being amplified. For example, audio amplifiers amplify signals in the audio (sound) range of less than 20 kHz, RF amplifiers amplify frequencies in the radio frequency range between 20 kHz and 300 GHz, and servo amplifiers and instrumentation amplifiers may work with very low frequencies down to direct current. A further distinction is whether the output is a linear or nonlinear representation of the input. Amplifiers can also be categorized by their physical placement in the signal chain; a preamplifier may precede other signal processing stages, for example.

The first practical device that could amplify was the triode vacuum tube, invented in 1906 by Lee De Forest, which led to the first amplifiers around 1912. Vacuum tubes were used in almost all amplifiers until the 1960s–1970s when the transistor, invented in 1947, replaced them. Today, most amplifiers use transistors, but vacuum tubes continue to be used in some applications.

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