I have some insight, I think!
While you do need power to properly drive a loudspeaker, these days the question is how much power! Years ago, yes, you got the biggest amp you could get or afford. But years ago, the PSA-2 was a big amp!
I have played with a few amps, and while yes you do need proper power to drive the speaker in question, you can in fact have too much power also! I read where TWICE the RMS rating of the driver is advisable, but when I have done this I find I cannot drive the amp, and I dont quite get what Im looking for, and if you do drive an amp that legitimately has double the rated power its just as easy to blow your speaker!
If you have a woofer rated for 600 watts, I wouldnt use a 150 watt amp because you can severely overdrive the amp and severe distortion can burn voice coils, as well as you probably wont get sufficient output! But you can drive a 600w woofer with 450 watts and be happy if you like the sound, and have enough output!
Its a balancing act, and I have never really blown my tweeters ) JBL 2402 ) with ten watts per tweeter! But use too much power and it gets too loud and harsh for me!
Re: Underpowered Amplifiers
Quote:
Originally posted by JonFairhurst
We all know that underpowered amps can lead to blown speakers, but is that really true?
In my experience it is absolutely true!
In the past I have blown several speakers (all MF and HF units BTW) with 30 to 70 wpc amps. I have never damaged any drivers with large amplifiers. A 40wpc amp driven into hard clipping will over heat the HF voice coil very quickly...so will playing square waves for that matter!
If a speaker is rated at say 20 watts, just don't turn that 300wpc amp all the way up and you will be fine. Unless you are trying to play louder than a bunch of bumper cars:D , you will rarely use more than 20 watts with even the most inefficient speakers anyway. The idea that you should use 150 watt amps with 150 watt speakers is silly. You should use the best sounding amp you can find that plays the speakers at a level that pleases you. If you start to hear distortion, turn it down or get a bigger amp. Obviously you must be reasonable too. If you try to fill a stadium with a pair of AR3as powered by a McIntosh MC2500 you will blow them up if you turn it up past the point where the loudspeakers go into distortion, but that is just common sense!
On the other hand, if you listen to moderately efficient (93 dBw) speakers and rarely have peaks over 95 dB you probably don't need more than 25wpc. But heck that 100watt amp will sound fine too!
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