Can you put 2 Audio IC's In Series for louder DB?

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Hello everyone! I will have to apologize in advance if this is a silly question but here it goes.

Can you put 2 Audio Ic's in series for an overall louder signal? Ex. LM386/LM380?

My only goal is to have one tone (specifically about 10khz) to be amplified very loud.

The Source of this signal is being generated from an UA741

Thank you in advance.
 
Well i don't know how much gain i need but i do know how much overall DB i want. I'm aiming for around 120-140 Db of this tone.

I just dont know if an single op amp can do that with an input of this UA741. Should i put a 2n2222 after the op amp and then into this current amplifier?

And yes my output will be to a low impedance speaker.
 
Can you put 2 Audio Ic's in series for an overall louder signal? Ex. LM386/LM380?
The answer is no. The output can only be whatever the last amplifying device in the series is capable of.
I'm aiming for around 120-140 Db of this tone.
That's gonna take some doing; it's a lot to ask for the vast majority of audio transducers. You have a specialty-type horn of some kind?
 
Well i don't know how much gain i need but i do know how much overall DB i want. I'm aiming for around 120-140 Db of this tone.

I just dont know if an single op amp can do that with an input of this UA741. Should i put a 2n2222 after the op amp and then into this current amplifier?

And yes my output will be to a low impedance speaker.

I hope you know what is 140 db of sound means . it can make you bleed through your ears and nose .
 
you couldn't run two amps in series, but you could run them in bridged mode to give you nearly twice the power.

as a quick experiment, you can cray something to create the phase change using a cheap audio transformer with a centre tap. input goes to the two wires of the first winding, the centre tap of the second winding is the ground of your output and the other two wires go to each of the amps input.
 
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You will need a good speaker with a horn. It doesn't really matter if you bridge more chips or not. You only get +3dB with 2 bridged chips instead of one. 100W adds about +20dB, So if you have a previously mentioned 129dB horn, you can use it with only 16W and will give out 141dB. If you have 100dB speaker, you would need 8kW for that. So the question is not the amp. (Well only if you have a set of speakers and you try to experiment on your whole city :) )
 
You will need a good speaker with a horn. It doesn't really matter if you bridge more chips or not. You only get +3dB with 2 bridged chips instead of one. 100W adds about +20dB, So if you have a previously mentioned 129dB horn, you can use it with only 16W and will give out 141dB. If you have 100dB speaker, you would need 8kW for that. So the question is not the amp. (Well only if you have a set of speakers and you try to experiment on your whole city :) )

It also depends upon what distance you measure the bels ,correct me if I am wrong.
 
May be this page can help you to determine what your power requirements will be,

Loudness volume doubling sound level change factor of perceived loudness formula calculate power level noise levels volume logarithm dependence three four fold loudness sound - by what factor does level decrease dependence comparison decibel levels 3

What you are wanting to do will be quite a feat to accomplish, Although not impssible.

First you must start off with a very highly efficient driver!!!

Even if you could find one that will do 120db at one watt it will take an amplifier that will produce 100 watts in order to produce 140db out of the driver.

That is if the driver can handle that much power continuously.

A typical high efficient compression type driver is about in the 110db per watt range or so (there are a few that are higher but are quite costly).

Therefore, In order for one of these drivers to produce 140db would require at least 1000 watts of power!!!
As I said quite a feat, and, I have yet to run across such a compression driver that can handle this much power as a good one is not cheap to begin with!!

As mentioned a Ceramic Piezo driver ( or a bunch of them) may be more suitable when switched from a very high voltage source, from maybe about 200V and greater.

Then there is the question of the target range of distance as you will lose about 10db of your sound intensity in the first 3.1meters from the driver compared to 1meter from the driver.
And another -6db there after for every doubling of the distance away from the driver.

Damping of sound level with distance - decibel dB damping calculation calculator distance versus sound reduction drop-off SPL free field loss sound and distance - decrease drop fall in sound over distance versus dB sound at different distances attenu


For instance,
I can easily create 120db SPL (and more) at a distance of 10cm from my desktop ESL driver.
But at a distance of 1meter (x10) my SPL has now dropped -20db to 100db SPL at 1 meter for the same input voltage.

I know this is true because I have done this as a real world test with a calibrated SPLmeter.

For one more tested example, My stack of loudspeakers can produce about 119db SPL standing in front of them (approx. 1m), and back at my listening area (approx. 14ft to 16ft away) I measure about 109db SPL with my meter.
It takes every thing my 1000watt Ashely FTX2000 can muster up to push those 8 cabinets to such levels!!! :)

jer :)
 

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