FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Single Ended Amp

Question:
We hear a lot of talk from time to time about single ended amps. Can someone explain what that means? (Please don't tell me it's an amp that, once you buy it, you can't get out of it and you're stuck with it!)

Answer:
There are others here who´ll explain it better, but a simple analogy would be a fretsaw, which is single ended. You need effort for both up and down strokes. The opposite would be a lumberjack saw, where you pull in one direction and your partner alternatively would pull it in the other direction. From the saw´s point of view this would be a push-pull action :-) Your Marshall has a push-pull class AB output stage. Single ended amps usually are very low power (from a technical point of view, single ended amps are not suitable for higher power because of their low efficiency ).