not enough power
Ever been to an live orchestra?? you dont reproduce that with 15watts 15watts does not do a tympany justice.
My speaker are a set of Infinity IRS Beta Clones. 4 12" Dayton euro series drivers in the bass enclosures, and 8 Dayton planar tweeters and two 3" soft dome mids in the high enclosures.
Ever been to an live orchestra?? you dont reproduce that with 15watts 15watts does not do a tympany justice.
My speaker are a set of Infinity IRS Beta Clones. 4 12" Dayton euro series drivers in the bass enclosures, and 8 Dayton planar tweeters and two 3" soft dome mids in the high enclosures.
Banned
Joined 2002
Re: not enough power
If you are sitting in front of 412" drivers and 8 tweeters and 2 other tweeters and you need m more than 400 watts you have more than a hearing problem. and just so you know a live orchestra does not use that much power they are using horn's and pro equipment not inefficient speakers like the ones you might be running.
tiltedhalo said:
If you are sitting in front of 412" drivers and 8 tweeters and 2 other tweeters and you need m more than 400 watts you have more than a hearing problem. and just so you know a live orchestra does not use that much power they are using horn's and pro equipment not inefficient speakers like the ones you might be running.
Eva said:There are people that likes outdoors parties with loud yet clear music for everybody to dance (including me), thus requiring amplifier circuits producing higher than average power ratings. The whole thing becomes even funnier when you have designed and built the entire sound system
It's not even a question of 'outdoors', these days 1.5KW is low power for a band PA system - many bass players use more tha that for their on-stage amps!.
Basically though it's down to a number of factors, power, size, and COST.
In my case, for my daughters band, cost and size are the most important. We run a Behringer PMH880S, this is class D and switchmode, so it's small and light - but provides 400W+400W RMS, either as stereo, or mono and monitors. Speaker wise we have either a pair of 1x15's, or a couple of pairs of 1x12's (all with tweeters). Due to space constraints (I only have a small car), we only take one pair of speakers.
As the speakers are 8 ohm, we actually only run 200W+200W, and this is enough for small venues.
Most bands, and me if I had the space!, run multi-KW and multi-speaker - as a minimum usually sub-woofers with mids and highs.
As usual, this gives more headroom, but is generally run pretty damn loud anyway - bear in mind, my 400W requires increasing to 4000W to make it twice as loud (assuming same speaker efficiencies.
I play bass and my stage rig cosists of a 900 Watt SWR Amplifier, and an Ampeg ISovent cabinet with 2x15's push pull and 2x10's and 900 watts is NOT enough stage volume when going up against two guitars running full stacks! and a drummer with a massive kit and double bass drums. the acoustic volume of the drums alone kill my measley 900 watts!
900 watts gets sucked up pretty quickly by bass. and the volume level is not that loud in all honesty.
But, for a home stereo, My Hales Rev 3's are not that efficient. and there are spots in the impedance curve that drop well below 2 ohms. and there are spots that are well above 125 ohms.
Think about that for a moment. everyone is so concerned about low impedance. that 1000 watt at 8 ohm amp will do less then 100 watts into 125 ohms.
Having large amounts of power available is not so you can play loud. it so that you never run into power compression. you will always have enough power to satisfy the speakers demands under reasonable listening levels.
And yes, i like VERY dynamic music. For example.
Bella Fleck - Flight Of the Cosmic Hippo, track 4 i think starts out with this MASSIVE Dropping Bass Note, then followed by a Snare Hit. Its not the bass note that causes the clip lights on my amp to flash, its the damn snare hit! Why, 200 watts per channel is not enough! I have to reduce the volume to a point where the realism is then lost.
Dallas Wind Symphony - Tritico, the Kettle drums will shake the room. as they do live, and yes i have been to many DWS live concerts. But the cymbal hits take the most power to reproduce at realistic volume levels. again, they cause my clip lights to flash not the drums.
Grace Jones - Slave to the Rythm. the Traingle hit is a very telling sound. this is a very sharp quick transient that draws LOTS of power.
If you have ever stood next to a live Snare drum or Triangle. then you know that the sounds is so sharp, it makes you flinch, I want that same realizm when i listen to music at home. i want the same transients. i want the same bass response, I want the same clean clear mids and highs. and im sorry, but i have yet to hear ANY receiver or chip amp come even close.
Sure, if i only listen to classical, or lawerence welk or Muzak then your average boombox amplifier would do just fine. and my 200 watts per channel will get the room rocking just fine with todays highly compressed music. But when you listen to something recorded really well, without compression, thats when the differences shine through!
Its kind of like this. If your traveling in your little econo-box 4 cylinder car and you come upon a steep hill you have to climb, lets face it, your little car is going to slow way down and just barly make it over the hill. yet Mr.Jones in his BMW V-12 will fly over the incline and never lose speed.
If you travel on flat plain roads your whole life. an econo box will probably be just fine. but if you like variety when you travel and venture out to the mountains often, then something with some real power under the hood makes the trip much more enjoyable!
In the end, its all about POWER!
MWAHAHAHAHAHAAHHA
900 watts gets sucked up pretty quickly by bass. and the volume level is not that loud in all honesty.
But, for a home stereo, My Hales Rev 3's are not that efficient. and there are spots in the impedance curve that drop well below 2 ohms. and there are spots that are well above 125 ohms.
Think about that for a moment. everyone is so concerned about low impedance. that 1000 watt at 8 ohm amp will do less then 100 watts into 125 ohms.
Having large amounts of power available is not so you can play loud. it so that you never run into power compression. you will always have enough power to satisfy the speakers demands under reasonable listening levels.
And yes, i like VERY dynamic music. For example.
Bella Fleck - Flight Of the Cosmic Hippo, track 4 i think starts out with this MASSIVE Dropping Bass Note, then followed by a Snare Hit. Its not the bass note that causes the clip lights on my amp to flash, its the damn snare hit! Why, 200 watts per channel is not enough! I have to reduce the volume to a point where the realism is then lost.
Dallas Wind Symphony - Tritico, the Kettle drums will shake the room. as they do live, and yes i have been to many DWS live concerts. But the cymbal hits take the most power to reproduce at realistic volume levels. again, they cause my clip lights to flash not the drums.
Grace Jones - Slave to the Rythm. the Traingle hit is a very telling sound. this is a very sharp quick transient that draws LOTS of power.
If you have ever stood next to a live Snare drum or Triangle. then you know that the sounds is so sharp, it makes you flinch, I want that same realizm when i listen to music at home. i want the same transients. i want the same bass response, I want the same clean clear mids and highs. and im sorry, but i have yet to hear ANY receiver or chip amp come even close.
Sure, if i only listen to classical, or lawerence welk or Muzak then your average boombox amplifier would do just fine. and my 200 watts per channel will get the room rocking just fine with todays highly compressed music. But when you listen to something recorded really well, without compression, thats when the differences shine through!
Its kind of like this. If your traveling in your little econo-box 4 cylinder car and you come upon a steep hill you have to climb, lets face it, your little car is going to slow way down and just barly make it over the hill. yet Mr.Jones in his BMW V-12 will fly over the incline and never lose speed.
If you travel on flat plain roads your whole life. an econo box will probably be just fine. but if you like variety when you travel and venture out to the mountains often, then something with some real power under the hood makes the trip much more enjoyable!
In the end, its all about POWER!
MWAHAHAHAHAHAAHHA
Zero Cool said:
Acoustic drums, played hard, are generally considered to be about 60W? - and in my experience that's about right. Running a 60W transistor combo, a 120W transistor bass combo, and acoustic drums balances pretty spot on.
The problem isn't the drums, it's the idiots playing guitar at stupid volume through big stacks!.
I presume the drums are miked up?, or the drummer may as well go to the bar!.
Try going three buildings down the road, where items are falling off the shelves
True story - a guy was playing bass at a fairly big venue, stage and dressing rooms etc. At the break one of the guys with the band asked if he could have a play on the bass, so he said OK. He then left the stage and went to the dressing room, which was a considerable distance from the stage, through corridors, firedoors etc.
He was sat having a drink (probably tea or coffee? - or not!), when all the dressing room started shaking and rattling to bass guitar. He thinks 'sh*t' and dashes back through all the firedoors and back to the stage - to ask "what the f**k do you think you're doing, where have you turned the amp up to!". Looking at the amp he then notices it's been turned DOWN to 3, when it was set to 8 previously
Bass really, really travels!.
A friend of mine plays an acoustic violin in a CW band.
The steel player runs a pair of 103dB/W JBL K130 guitar speakers with a 500W amp. He sits less than 1M in front of this stack.
Even though the violin player uses a mute, and has no monitor speaker, the steel player whines that the violin is too loud on stage!
The bass player has only 200W and a single 18 (this isn't rock and roll). Her stage volume determines the level I have to run everything at through the FOH rig to give a balanced sound.
Professional speakers with 4" coils have about 3dB of power compression at about the 600W level. Home stereo speakers have about 3dB at the 60W level.
For this reason in pro sound I don't see the point in running amps much larger than 600W per driver. It that doesn't do the job, more drivers are needed.
For home use if 100W doesn't do the job, different speakers are needed. Pro speakers will have no compression at the 1W level, and play as loud as a typical home speaker with 100W (difference in efficiency plus power compression is at work here).
A friend of mine has some home speakers I built with professional parts, dual 15s and a 2" compression driver. They are around 101dB/W and in room can go from about 28hz~18Khz. Most of the time he listens at about 100mW. He has two pieces of music that are very dynamic that causes him to run his amp into clipping. Considering that his amp is 500W RMS and 1KW peak, there is no where to go, he will just have to live with it the way it is.
99% of the time a 2W amp would be fine.
The steel player runs a pair of 103dB/W JBL K130 guitar speakers with a 500W amp. He sits less than 1M in front of this stack.
Even though the violin player uses a mute, and has no monitor speaker, the steel player whines that the violin is too loud on stage!
The bass player has only 200W and a single 18 (this isn't rock and roll). Her stage volume determines the level I have to run everything at through the FOH rig to give a balanced sound.
Professional speakers with 4" coils have about 3dB of power compression at about the 600W level. Home stereo speakers have about 3dB at the 60W level.
For this reason in pro sound I don't see the point in running amps much larger than 600W per driver. It that doesn't do the job, more drivers are needed.
For home use if 100W doesn't do the job, different speakers are needed. Pro speakers will have no compression at the 1W level, and play as loud as a typical home speaker with 100W (difference in efficiency plus power compression is at work here).
A friend of mine has some home speakers I built with professional parts, dual 15s and a 2" compression driver. They are around 101dB/W and in room can go from about 28hz~18Khz. Most of the time he listens at about 100mW. He has two pieces of music that are very dynamic that causes him to run his amp into clipping. Considering that his amp is 500W RMS and 1KW peak, there is no where to go, he will just have to live with it the way it is.
99% of the time a 2W amp would be fine.
djk said:
Whenever I hear a viloin playing I also think it is too loud. Take any nice tune and ruin it by adding a viloin. Bagpipes would be the other instrument that has the same effect on me.
BTW, how can you tell if bagpipes are out of tune?
No hate mail please. This is of course JUST MY worthless opinion.
AndrewT said:
Be nice if we could, but it's NOT an option - everything has to go in my Fiat Punto
I've got a picture of it loaded somewhere?, might be at work?, if I can find it I'll post it!.There's currently some recent recordings here if you want to have a listen?. My daughter Melissa plays bass and sings, Charlie plays guitar and sings, and Tom is the drummer.
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