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How does Klipsch derive their power handling specs?


yepimonfire

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On 11/28/2017 at 11:23 AM, yepimonfire said:

 

....................

 they fail to disclose the fact they add 4dB to their sensitivity rating for “in room” sensitivity in their spec sheets.

 

 

 

How/where did you determine that? 

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On 11/28/2017 at 8:23 AM, yepimonfire said:

For example, is it pink noise? Long term, short term? Burst?

 

Be nice to know since they fail to disclose the fact they add 4dB to their sensitivity rating for “in room” sensitivity in their spec sheets.

 

 

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On 12/3/2017 at 5:52 PM, dwilawyer said:

On the drivers they do test, I believe they do it in accordance with AES POWER Spec AES2-1984 (ANSI S4.26-1984), which is pink noise for 2 hours without resulting in damage to driver.  

 

 

 

On 12/4/2017 at 9:27 AM, JohnA said:

 

How/where did you determine that? 

 

I believe dwilawyer is correct, but I seem to recall that a Klipsch employee (Trey ??) said it was band limited pink noise over the advertised bandwidth of the woofer.  I could easily be wrong.  This would be long term, i.e., for the 2 hours, I guess.  In program material, at least in music, the high frequencies at the very top are down about 20 dB; most tweeters can't take much power, and don't need to.   Peak power handling is a different figure.  So for the Klipschorn, it is 100 watts/400 watts, for a speaker that has about 105 dB sensitivity in the average listening room.  In my 4000 ++ cu.ft. room, I should be able to get about 115 dB at 88 watts, but no way would I push it that hard with anything but the briefest burst.  I play some movies at Reference -- or 5 dB below Reference -- with 105 dB peaks or 100 dB peaks.  This does not count the subwoofer's 115 or 110 dB peaks.

 

On the spec sheets, newer versions of Klipsch speakers have a footnote indicated next to the word "sensitivity," which, at the bottom of the page says, "Sensitivity in the average listening room."  This includes the Heresy III, the current Klipschorn, and probably many more.  Paradigm does something similar, but they publish both the listening room value and the anechoic value.   I assume Klipsch figured that 4 dB was about the average difference between the anechoic figure and the room figure.  I think a Klipsch employee said as much in the historical thread.  That makes sense, because Klipsch speakers are meant to be near a wall, or, in some cases in a corner, rather than out in the room, where cultish, and other, audiophiles placed speakers in the '70s and '80s.

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  I believe dwilawyer is correct, but I seem to recall that a Klipsch employee (Trey ??) said it was band limited pink noise over the advertised bandwidth of the woofer.  I could easily be wrong.  This would be long term, i.e., for the 2 hours, I guess.  In program material, at least in music, the high frequencies at the very top are down about 20 dB; most tweeters can't take much power, and don't need to.   Peak power handling is a different figure.  So for the Klipschorn, it is 100 watts/400 watts, for a speaker that has about 105 dB sensitivity in the average listening room.  In my 4000 ++ cu.ft. room, I should be able to get about 115 dB at 88 watts, but no way would I push it that hard with anything but the briefest burst.  I play some movies at Reference -- or 5 dB below Reference -- with 105 dB peaks or 100 dB peaks.  This does not count the subwoofer's 115 or 110 dB peaks.

 

On the spec sheets, newer versions of Klipsch speakers have a footnote indicated next to the word "sensitivity," which, at the bottom of the page says, "Sensitivity in the average listening room."  This includes the Heresy III, the current Klipschorn, and probably many more.  Paradigm does something similar, but they publish both the listening room value and the anechoic value.   I assume Klipsch figured that 4 dB was about the average difference between the anechoic figure and the room figure.  I think a Klipsch employee said as much in the historical thread.  That makes sense, because Klipsch speakers are meant to be near a wall, or, in some cases in a corner, rather than out in the room, where cultish, and other, audiophiles placed speakers in the '70s and '80s.

 

Tweeter power handling is also less of an issue with Klipsch as well since direct radiating tweeters are already about 3 or more dB sensitive than woofers, horn loaded tweeters are 10dB or more. Most of the content in music and even movies is centered between 100hz and 2khz as well. Also, while it’s fine to list an in room sensitivity, I’d prefer if they gave the anechoic as well, since most people have no idea what it is.

 

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1 hour ago, yepimonfire said:

Also, while it’s fine to list an in room sensitivity, I’d prefer if they gave the anechoic as well, since most people have no idea what it is.

Which is why they probably don't give the number, since it's not well understood by the general public, and generally meaningless when it comes to understanding what one might expect to happen in their room.

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