Amplifiers

[willhollis16]

Hi,
I am a complete newbie and looking to buy an amplifier to power a sub or bass shaker. But i don't understand the ratings on amps for example is a 100w amp only able to power 100w speakers or can it power more powerful speakers or less powerful speakers.
Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks
Will

[guitargully]

a 100w amp could power 200w speakers or 50w speakers (of course those are just examples) You just dont want to send to many watts thru speakers that arent rated for that kinda power. There's different ways of rating amps which i'm not real sure of, someone else i'm sure could answer that. There's also tube amps, solid stape, chip amps.. all sorts of em out there.. so choose one that suits your needs or that is easy to build if thats' what you're looking for. Good luck

Mike
(started a tube amp.. figured out i could get 145 more watts in a prebuilt solid state guitar amp for the same price...(used of course.. ) .. maybe i'll finish it someday)

[elizard]

Originally posted by guitargully
a 100w amp could power 200w speakers or 50w speakers (of course those are just examples) You just dont want to send to many watts thru speakers that arent rated for that kinda power. There's different ways of rating amps which i'm not real sure of, someone else i'm sure could answer that. There's also tube amps, solid stape, chip amps.. all sorts of em out there.. so choose one that suits your needs or that is easy to build if thats' what you're looking for. Good luck

Mike
(started a tube amp.. figured out i could get 145 more watts in a prebuilt solid state guitar amp for the same price...(used of course.. ) .. maybe i'll finish it someday)

You also don't want to underpower the speakers either. I.E. Drive the 100watts to its full on a speaker rated for more. The distortion and clipping will surely blow the speakers.

[Richard C]

Speaker and amplifer ratings do not have to match.

Speaker power rating is a very approximate parameter and an under-powered amp driven into clipping is probably the most common cause of speaker failure.

Whatever you use, if the sound becomes distorted either through amplifier clipping or the speaker approaching its physical limits failure is almost inevitable, you just have to be sensible.

[willhollis16]

Right,
So would say a 250w amp be enough to power a 700w sub.

[Jean]

You can power speakers rated at 100 or even 200 watt RMS with a 20 watt rms amplifier and not blow them. What happens when you turn the volume down on your amp, your speakers only see a fraction of the power.

[SkinnyBoy]

Originally posted by willhollis16
Right,
So would say a 250w amp be enough to power a 700w sub.

if its a sony sub (lol) I wouldn't bother with more than like a 150 watt rms amp.. lol

but, yeah, you can do what you said...

[Circlotron]

Originally posted by willhollis16
is a 100w amp only able to power 100w speakers or can it power more powerful speakers or less powerful speakers.

Watts are like horsepower and speakers are like tyres.

[SkinnyBoy]

1 horsepower equals 750 watts...
I'm not sure what one tyre equals... lol

[Circlotron]

No, no, nooooo. A tyre will handle from zero to whatever horsepower you throw at it, till you reach it's physical limits, just like applying watts to a speaker. You have little and big speakers, little and big tyres. Generally speaking, little sources don't hurt big sinks. Monster amps and motors are capable of making mince-meat out of small speakers and tyres, but they don't have to if you treat them within their limits.

What fun *that* is, I don't know.