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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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Propeller Head Plaza Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics. |
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In Reply to: What's Enough Watts? posted by thetubeguy1954 on May 25, 2007 at 05:35:44:
The real pain in the ass is that our hearing is logarithmic, at least as a first approximation. We perceive loudness as the log of the pressure level. That means two things:
The first watt, or millionth of a watt, is critical, because that's where we do most of our listening. Many have pointed that out.
The amount of margin, or excess above average power level, that we need is large. That too, is due to the logarithmic nature of our hearing. Let's say for some average listening level we are using one watt (which may be high for most systems). If a peak is 21 dB above that, which is a conservative number for classical music, we'll need 128 watts for the peak. (Every 3 dB is a doubling of power). Need 24 dB of headroom? That'll require 256 watts.
I think a good answer is electronic crossovers and dedicated amps for each driver. That lets you put a humongous amp with a Hoover Dam power supply on your woofer, and a little 10 watt amp on your tweeter.
Fortunately, amps are most linear right around their bias points, so getting the first watt good is also the easiest.
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Follow Ups
- Great topic! - lipmanl@hotmail.com 06:54:59 05/25/07 (1)
- RE: Great topic! - AJinFLA 07:26:35 05/25/07 (0)
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