Speaker Wattage Help

Re: Speaker Wattage Help

BigDaddy said:
Yes you can underpower speakers. It's the fact that if the speaker is underpowered you need to turn the amp up to get more volume and make the tighter higher rated speaker to work. It has a lot to do with the spider. This turning up of the amp creates more distortion which is a square wave which causes over heating of the voice coil. That will cause failure or a VC rub.
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In theory you can give a 80 watt speaker a 30 watt square wave all day long and not have problems. Where failure occurs is when a 60 watt amplifier is driven into clipping. This "square" wave has the same impact on the speaker as say a 120 watt signal would.

Going by your logic, I'm at risk of blowing the sub in my truck every time I don't send it the entire 400 watts RMS it's rated at. Sir, I hope you realise the absurdity of that concept. The subwoofer performs at 30 watts just as well as it does at 400 watts, and is not in danger of failing unless I sent it more power than it is capable of handling.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt... I don't care, but what ammuses me is that you've gotten all upset when someone comes in here with an opinion that differs from yours after you prefaced your first post by stating that you were no expert. No hard feelings, man, I'm just trying to share my experiences, and until either of us can put together any real hard facts, both or accounts should be taken with a grain of salt. ;)
 
Re: Speaker Wattage Help

I'm not upset. I am just saying none of us are experts or even professionals. Nor are we engineers.

You as with myself and everybody should be careful what we write as being facts. There is so much wrong information on the Internet I for one do not want to be part of that.

I only repeat was was explained to me by professionals or my own experiences. I do not make up pseudo science. Your explanation falls into that pseudo science semantics category. Nothing personal, again it's just my opinion.

Again you are saying I am all upset.........if it comes across that way I am surprised.

You start that bullspit about if someone doesn't agree with me......That's a sure sign of someone looking to pick a fight.

I'm not going for that kind of thing, you want me to respond in a negative way towards you now and on and on until it gets really personal.

At 25 years old just how much life experience could you have?

Please......getting into anything with you would be pointless.

I'm not saying you are stupid or childish or inexperienced in anyway, I am saying it is pointless.

You are 25 years old.........to me that is a child, I do not respond to children except listen to them in a kind and thoughtful way. If they are open for information I will try to guide them like a parent would/should do. Otherwise I just smile and think how cute they are, unless their parents raised them to be spoiled, disrespectful and nasty little bass tards. Then I just ignore them and become sad about how poorly kids are raised today.

See me in 10 or 20 years from now and talk to me like a man without a cloaked attempt to pull me into an argument.

I'm glad you are amused, you have amused me now too.
 
Re: Speaker Wattage Help

Let’s continue to talk about speakers and not attempt to put words in each other’s mouths or imply that we know the intentions of the other. I’m not trying to fight with anyone, nor am I baiting anyone. I refuse to continue this petty and irrelevant argument on this forum. Beyond that, I have no reaction other than to shake my head, roll my eyes, laugh, and move on.

FamousForSustain, I’m sorry your thread was interrupted like this. I guess I should apologise for trying to actually help. Good luck on your tone quest.
 
Re: Speaker Wattage Help

BigDaddy said:
I'm not upset. I am just saying none of us are experts or even professionals. Nor are we engineers.

You as with myself and everybody should be careful what we write as being facts. There is so much wrong information on the Internet I for one do not want to be part of that.

I only repeat was was explained to me by professionals or my own experiences. I do not make up pseudo science. Your explanation falls into that pseudo science semantics category. Nothing personal, again it's just my opinion.

Again you are saying I am all upset.........if it comes across that way I am surprised.

You start that bullspit about if someone doesn't agree with me......That's a sure sign of someone looking to pick a fight.

I'm not going for that kind of thing, you want me to respond in a negative way towards you now and on and on until it gets really personal.

At 25 years old just how much life experience could you have?

Please......getting into anything with you would be pointless.

I'm not saying you are stupid or childish or inexperienced in anyway, I am saying it is pointless.

You are 25 years old.........to me that is a child, I do not respond to children except listen to them in a kind and thoughtful way. If they are open for information I will try to guide them like a parent would/should do. Otherwise I just smile and think how cute they are, unless their parents raised them to be spoiled, disrespectful and nasty little bass tards. Then I just ignore them and become sad about how poorly kids are raised today.

See me in 10 or 20 years from now and talk to me like a man without a cloaked attempt to pull me into an argument.

I'm glad you are amused, you have amused me now too.
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Man, you should show a little more respect. Quite frankly, i think you are responding in a childish way. And could you be any more contradicting within your post? "Im not calling you childish or anything.....but at 25, that is a child to me".....
 
Re: Speaker Wattage Help

I read it over and over again. It was a very valuable tool while doing sound reinforcement and putting together sound systems.

There are a few other books as well.

I had a small company and had 4 systems I could run at any one time depending on the job. My big system could do a medium sized club so it really wasn't that big, but it probably cost me well over $30,000 if you add up all the snakes, cables, racks, FX, 24 channel mackie board, 16 channel board and the smaller one for small gigs, Crown and Crest power amps, JBL, Yorkville and EV speaker cabinets. It was an active 3 way system with 2 monitor zones.

I sold everything to a DJ. He made more money on one gig than I made in a week and had much less overhead. And he did not have to deal with Prima Donna vocalist and attitude from marginal players. Not to mention having to hire people that will actually work for their pay.

I am not a neophyte at this stuff and do not make things up. I try to accurately relay information I have gleamed over the almost 40 years of playing music, building, modifying and repairing guitars and amps, running sound systems, building sound systems and bass rigs.

Like I have said I am by no means an expert but I do know a lot and only try to help. People seem to get emotionally hurt if you point out that their beliefs and the things they think they know are wrong or flawed. It's not about that. It's about honestly trying to help someone solve a problem or some confusion about a subject.

The more the uninformed sound off with their rhetoric and misinformation the more the truly knowledgeable people are chased away. I have seen it happen on a few forums until the only people left are a few who just slap each other on the back and tell each other how great they are.
 
Re: Speaker Wattage Help

Alright, it seems like I've kicked off a "what's better, actives or passives" type thread where everyone has an opinion, nobody's going to be converted and someone's expertise invariably gets called into question. Let me rephrase my original question so it can be answered with a minimum of controversy.

Given that I use a high gain amp which is rated at 60 watts and we can fairly assume actually puts out at least 45, will a pair of 70-watt speakers (never mind the brand or if they're British, American or Turkish) enable me to crank both the dirt and volume without much/any speaker breakup, or is it a job better suited to a pair of 100+ watters?

Advice always appreciated.
 
Re: Speaker Wattage Help

140 watts RMS power handling is more than enough. Actually 70 watts is probably enough, but I won't argue about it.
 
Re: Speaker Wattage Help

FamousForSustain said:
Alright, it seems like I've kicked off a "what's better, actives or passives" type thread where everyone has an opinion, nobody's going to be converted and someone's expertise invariably gets called into question. Let me rephrase my original question so it can be answered with a minimum of controversy.

Given that I use a high gain amp which is rated at 60 watts and we can fairly assume actually puts out at least 45, will a pair of 70-watt speakers (never mind the brand or if they're British, American or Turkish) enable me to crank both the dirt and volume without much/any speaker breakup, or is it a job better suited to a pair of 100+ watters?

Advice always appreciated.
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You'll be fine with that setup.
 
Re: Speaker Wattage Help

**Disclaimer** In an effort to avoid false accusations of providing false pseudo-scientific information, I will preface my comment by stating that this answer reflects my opinion, based solely on a few years of hands-on experience, independent research, and graduate research in sound and acoustic design, and is not intended to be taken as gospel.

FamousForSustain said:
Given that I use a high gain amp which is rated at 60 watts and we can fairly assume actually puts out at least 45, will a pair of 70-watt speakers (never mind the brand or if they're British, American or Turkish) enable me to crank both the dirt and volume without much/any speaker breakup, or is it a job better suited to a pair of 100+ watters?
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In my opinion, a pair of 70 wrms speakers are more than adequate. Let us know how it works out for you.
 
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