Dark Energy not only has background effects through its equation of state w _ { DE } , but also it can cluster through its sound speed c ^ { 2 } _ { sDE } , subject to certain conditions .
As is well-known , for dynamical dark energy models , dark energy perturbations get sourced into matter perturbations through metric perturbations which is always accompanied by the term ( 1 + w _ { DE } ) .
Hence , for dynamical dark energy models with w _ { DE } close -1 , their perturbations get almost decoupled from metric leaving nearly null imprints on matter power spectra .
Furthermore , Quintessence models with its sound speed equal to speed of light , washes out almost any inhomogeneities occurred within sub-Hubble scales , hence making detectability of dark energy perturbations far more difficult than already is .
In this article we look for these imprints by going beyond Quintessence considering an Early Dark Energy parametrization that not only have a non-negligible energy density at early times , but also it can achieve w _ { DE } far from -1 , making dark energy perturbations detectable in sub-horizon scales .
With the help of current datasets , we are able to constrain sound speed of dark energy to a low value ( c ^ { 2 } _ { sDE } \sim 0.14 ) , along with a much higher range allowed for early dark energy density , with strong constraints on it ( \Omega _ { e } \sim 0.02 ) .
We discuss effects of different datasets on this parametrization along with possible explanation for deviation on certain parameter ( s ) comparing between c ^ { 2 } _ { sDE } = 1 case and the case where it is kept open .