Decibel Gain

Power Gain
The power gain G of an amplifier is the ratio of output
power to the input power

If the output power is 15W and input power is 0.5W

then

The output power is 30 times greater then the input

power
 Decibel Gain
The power gain of an audio amplifier is measured in the
units of ‘BEL’ in the honor of Graham Bell the inventor of
Telephones.
1 Bel= 10 deciBel
As a unit the Bel was actually devised as a convenient
way to represent power loss in he telephone system
wiring rather then gain in amplifiers. It is defined in
logarithmic scale since human ear is sensitive to sound
energy only in logarithmic scale.
The decibel power gain (G) is defined in terms of the
normal gain (G)

dB
 Decibel Gain
Decibels:

If the circuit has a power gain of 100, its

decibels power gain is
dB
 Decibel Gain
10 dB for each factor of 10:
If the power gain is 10; then the decibel power
gain is

If the power gain is 100; then the decibel power

gain is

If the power gain is 1000; then the decibel power

gain is
 Decibel Gains

G G/
1 0dB
10 10dB
100 20dB
1000 30dB
10000 40dB

Similar results applies to power gain of less than 1.

When the power gain is 0.1; the decibel gain is -10dB
 Decibel Gain
3 dB for each factor of 2:
If the power gain is 2, then the decibel power gain is

G=4, the decibel power gain is

G=8, the decibel power gain is

When the normal power gain doubles, the decibel power

gain increases by approximately 3dB
 Decibel Gains
Negative Decibels:
If power gain is less than 1 there is a power loss (attenuation), and
the decibel power gain is negative. For instance, if the output
power is 1.5W and the input power is 3W, then

And the decibel power gain is

When the power gain is 0.25,

When the power gain is 0.125,

Decibel Gain
 Rs
+
VS G1 G2
P1 P2 P3 RL
-

Ordinary Gain Multiply

The figure shows two stage s in an amplifier. The
first stage has an input power of P1, an output
power of P2, and a power gain

The second stage has an input power of p2,an

output power of P3, and a power gain of
P3
G2 
P2
The total power gain of the two stages is
For example, a first stage power gain is 100
and the second stage power gain is 200, the
total power gain is

100 200
20,000
 Decibel Gain
Decibel Gains Add:
Since the total gain of two cascaded stages is

We can take the logarithm of both sides to get

Multiplying both sides by 10 gives

Which can be written as

20dB 23dB 43dB
Relation of power and voltage gains
The rms voltage across the amplifier input
terminal equals V1 and the rms voltage across
the amplifier output terminals equals V2.
therefore, the input power to the amplifier is

And the output power is

The power gain from input to out equals

Decibel Voltage Gain
Voltage measurements are more common than
power measurements. Therefore it is not surprising
that decibels are also used to specify voltage gain.
Decibel voltage gain (A/) is
For example if A is 40, then

A A

1 0dB 1 0dB
2 6dB 0.5 -6dB
4 12dB 0.25 -12dB
8 18dB 0.125 -18dB
Factors of 2 and 10:
When A=2

When A=4

When A=8

When the voltage gain doubles the decibel gain

increases by 6dB.
If the voltage gain decreases by a factor of 2, hen the
decibel gain decreases by 6dB.
Also when the voltage gain increases by a factor of
10 , the decibel gain increases by 20 dB.
 A

1 0dB
10 20dB
100 40dB
1000 60dB
Half power point:
The frequency at which the output power is half of
the input power is called the half power point. This is
also called the cutoff frequency
At the cut off frequency
A=0.707
As
For R1 =R2