wattage between speakers

[Kruelty]

I have quite a few questions that I can't find the answer to anywhere else after many days searching.

1. if you have two speakers (say a tweeter and midrange) the tweeter has a sensitivity of 98dB (1w/1m) rms of 20w/50w max with 7 ohm impedance.
midrange has a sensitivity of 85dB (1w/1m)rms of 200w/285w max with 6.3 ohm impedance
connecting them in parrallel with a 100 watt amp.
is this bad to try and connect them straight up or how can I connect them so that one is not louder than the other and both are evenly powered?

2. connecting speakers in parallel say a 50 watt, 100 watt, 200 watt. would I want an amp that puts out over 350 watts to power them and again how do you not blow the lower watt speaker?

3. should all speakers have the same sensitivity so that one speaker isn't louder than the rest?

4. how is wattage split between speakers in series, parallel, through a crossover?

think that will get me started thanks for any help.

[richie00boy]

The crossover will split the signal into the right frequencies, then an attenuator for each part of the crossover will match the levels.

[Geek]

Hi Kruelty,

Originally posted by Kruelty
2. connecting speakers in parallel say a 50 watt, 100 watt, 200 watt. would I want an amp that puts out over 350 watts to power them and again how do you not blow the lower watt speaker?

When you have multiple speakers of different power capabilities, your maximum input is kind of determined by which speaker it is.

For nominal listening, it is not unusual to find a 100W woofer, 10W midrange and tweeter, because of how the music spectrum is distributed.

This does not limit you to a 10 watt amp though, since most of the music power is in the bass (for SPL).

If you have all fullranges though (as in a line array), the maximum RMS would definately be limited to the lowest power speaker.

Originally posted by Kruelty
3. should all speakers have the same sensitivity so that one speaker isn't louder than the rest?

That's almost impossible from a design standpoint. We just have to deal with attenuators to take care of the differences

[69stingray]

This does not limit you to a 10 watt amp though, since most of the music power is in the bass (for SPL).

Then how does one determine the RMS wattage of a speaker? For example, what would the Max. RMS wattage for the following 3-way?

Woofer: Dayton RS270S - 100 Watts RMS / 140 Watts Max
Midrange: Dayton RS125S - 30 Watts RMS / 45 Watts Max
Tweeter: Hi Vi RT1L - 5 Watts RMS / 20 Watts Max

Lets say the crossover points are 300 and 2,500 Hz.

[Nigel Goodwin]

It depends how honestly the manufacturer rates his speakers?, personally I would rate the system as 100W RMS.

[AndrewT]

Hi,
if your manufacturer has a good reputation to protect, they will build a series of pre-production models and test them at the highest level that does not cause a permanent deterioration in performance. This may/will involve driving some to destruction. Others will cut corners.

[francis varkey]

It depends how honestly the manufacturer rates his speakers?, personally I would rate the system as 100W RMS.

I have to agree, when the source is music.
If it was purely a signal gererator, then a midrange(1 khz) tone of
say 70watts would fry the mid speaker whilst still being below the max rating of 100W in this case.