Driving your speakers with more power than they "need"

[82 Cornwalls]

Unused power is just that, unused, no magic pixie dust in it.

 

I can say without hesitation 8 watts is plenty of power for me and clipping is not a problem.

Much more power has been tried and found not to be needed at my less than live concert listening levels.

 

More power to you if that's your desire, but I'm not going to tell someone else they need more power and that it's going to transform their system. If they are happy with what they have and hear no signs of clipping all is good, no sense in losing sleep.

 

Many have gone down in quantity and up in quality and experienced worthwhile improvements.

[derrickdj1]

2 hours ago, Tom05 said:

Eight watts is not much power , it’s a level of power that will leave many systems prone to clipping, especially at any appreciable distance. Certain music and special effects can  be enhanced to an exhilarating level of pleasure and intensity when  played  loud  . We may not want to listen at the higher levels for long , but sometimes shear unclipped power is the secret recipe for delivering  a  moving and memorable experience . All things being equal ,power is a good thing ,as is the high efficiency that our speakers deliver .

Low wattage amps are enough power for a lot of Klipsch users due the the high sensitivity of the speaker and size. It is like a sports car, just because it can most people won't be running their system that hard toward clipping.  With room gain of easy 10 db, there is some free headroom.

.

[Woofers and Tweeters]

plus one on the 1 watt, or the right few watts.

99.9% of the time I (we on here) only need, want, and use a watt or less. Most are looking for better sound, not (only) louder. 

[Tom05]

My system is integrated , multi channel music / movie . Yea , most of the time a few watts are sufficient. But I like to step on the gas once in a while , clear the carbon out of the horns , show my quests what a high powered system can do , and send a shiver down their spine while I’m at it . Most people don’t have a clue what a great movie scene can sound like  , but  it takes power  efficiency and great subwoofer capabilities to get the job done ,weak amps aren’t for me , but to each his own 🤓

[Shakeydeal]

I have two amplifiers. One is 8 wpc (300B) and the other is a whopping 15 wpc (EL84). Neither one comes close to clipping in my system when cranking any music I desire. A lot of this is because of well designed power supplies. Not all flea watt amps are created equal. Once you hear one with some balls, you'll understand.

 

 

I don't give two s&*ts about home theater. Not in my room.

 

 

[Tom05]

No criticism to anyone else’s setup , I’m sure your system sounds awesome . Low watt amps will clip earlier, that’s just the math . I like power , always have , in cars , motorcycles etc. Can’t an amplifier be excellent ,and powerful ? I agree that if we’re talking strictly music , then power isn’t as big an issue ,but  I also believe that some people take the low power idea a little too far , and that the power of an amplifier is an important consideration.

[82 Cornwalls]

If the amplifier gets the job done with a little to spare and sounds better to the user.....

 

I use less than 1/10 of a watt average with CW 1s in the living room and less than 1/2 of a watt in my more nearfield system in my spare bedroom with 90 dB speakers. 

 

Yes I have heard music played at high levels on a great system and like a couple of things about it (not for long though), but overall I enjoy music so much more at lower levels.

[Shakeydeal]

48 minutes ago, Tom05 said:

No criticism to anyone else’s setup , I’m sure your system sounds awesome . Low watt amps will clip earlier, that’s just the math . I like power , always have , in cars , motorcycles etc. Can’t an amplifier be excellent ,and powerful ? I agree that if we’re talking strictly music , then power isn’t as big an issue ,but  I also believe that some people take the low power idea a little too far , and that the power of an amplifier is an important consideration.

 

Low power will clip earlier when paired with the wrong loudspeaker. With 104 db speakers you will never clip an 8 watt amp at any level you could withstand for any amount of time. It's all about pairing the right amplifier with the right speaker. If you don't get that part right, all bets are off.

[CWelsh]

11 hours ago, Peter P. said:

The benefit is called "headroom".

 

Any piece of music will vary in amplitude. Those intermittent, briefly louder instances are called "peaks", and require more power from the amplifier. So if your amp is playing at level "X" one of those peaks will come along and demand more of the amp's power to reproduce the louder signal. If the amp maxes out trying to faithfully reproduce that brief peak it will "clip", which means if you looked at the waveform on an oscilloscope it would look like an undulating wave but the tops and the bottoms of the wave will be flat. These flat portions indicate the amp is operating beyond its limits, which can damage the amp.

 

If an amp has headroom, it has more power than is needed to reproduce those peaks. Some people consider headroom the ability to briefly generate considerably more power than its continuous output rating. Fair enough. Whether your amp has plenty of reserve power to drive your speakers or merely has the headroom to briefly reproduce those peaks the result is the same.

 

Conversely, most speakers are rated in "Continuous" watts. Which means they can tolerate some peaks beyond that continuous rating as long as the amp has enough headroom to reproduce the wave faithfully. If the amp clips even if its output rating is below the continuous wattage rating of your speakers, when the amp generates that flat section described above, it is sending a DC voltage to your speakers. This is bad and if long enough in time can damage your speakers.

 

The solution is to keep the volume down to a point where you don't hear distortion, even on those intermittent peaks. As long as you don't hear anything bad, you're not pushing your amp or speakers beyond their limits and don't risk damage to one or both.

I do hear what your saying and understand about headroom, peaks vs. continuous, and clipping. All good points. All correct within context. When I'm using the example of an 8 wpc amplifier, my context includes a Klipsch Forte III with 99 dB effeciency. That 99 dB is LOUD by pretty much any standard...loud enough to damage your ears with extended exposure. So, let's say there is a peak in the source material that needs to be twice as loud. That means the amp has to deliver a whopping 2 watts to the speaker. Twice as loud again, 4 watts. Twice as loud again, 8 watts. Now we have to worry about clipping, but we are at 111 dB. And, unless I'm mistaken, an amplifier that can deliver 100 watts will still only deliver 8 watts to achieve that 111 dB. Of course, if we were driving a speaker with 80 dB efficiency, it would be an entirely different context and way more power would be required.

 

Still, how loud the speakers can get is not really the question. Do those additional unused watts (thanks @82 Cornwalls) contribute anything to the overall quality of the sound, or does the output capability strictly affect volume. I'm leaning to the idea that it is only SPL and other factors like current, topology, etc. are responsible for other aspects of the overall "sound".

 

 

[Tom05]

104 db/ meter , gives us reasonable protection  against clipping . 96 db  as in the Heresy II , much less so , particularly as the room  gets  bigger and the listening distance increases . It’s really about  how loud a guy wants to go . I like to have the capability to go extreme once in a while. It would seem ridiculous to me if  I  couldn’t fully play my Klipschorn /  Lascala front stage to its full potential , maybe I’m missing something here , or maybe not 🤓

[Shakeydeal]

Heresy @ 96 db would be fine with a low power SET in a small room with moderate listening levels. For movies or head banging, probably not. But for lascalas and khorns, high power is wasted on them. And unfortunately, unless you are willing to break the bank on an amp, as the power goes up the quality usually goes in the other direction. It's much easier and less cost prohibitive to build a high quality low power amp. And it's with low power that these extremely high efficiency speakers shine, IMHO.

[82 Cornwalls]

1 hour ago, CWelsh said:

That 99 dB is LOUD by pretty much any standard...loud enough to damage your ears with extended exposure. So, let's say there is a peak in the source material that needs to be twice as loud. That means the amp has to deliver a whopping 2 watts to the speaker. Twice as loud again, 4 watts. Twice as loud again, 8 watts. Now we have to worry about clipping, but we are at 111 dB. And, unless I'm mistaken, an amplifier that can deliver 100 watts will still only deliver 8 watts to achieve that 111 dB.

 

Your numbers are off if using "twice as loud".

1W to 2W is a 3 dB increase and 2W to 4W, 4 to 8, 8 to 16, and so on 3 dBs each time you double a noticeable difference.

So if actually using 1W AVERAGE I would want 8W - 16W for 9 - 12 dBs above average (after a year or two I would need 500W minimum to compensate for hearing loss).

 

1W to 10W to 100W to 1,000W is actually what it takes to be twice as loud (10 dBs).

These numbers show how ridiculous it can get chasing wattage.

 

Didn't someone say something about needing a good 5W amplifier or is that just one of those stories?

Of course today a good 5W amplifier can be 20W or 50W or 100W or........

[CWelsh]

9 minutes ago, 82 Cornwalls said:

 

Your numbers are off if using "twice as loud".

1W to 2W is a 3 dB increase and 2W to 4W, 4 to 8, 8 to 16, and so on 3 dBs each time you double a noticeable difference.

So if actually using 1W AVERAGE I would want 8W - 16W for 9 - 12 dBs above average (after a year or two I would need 500W minimum to compensate for hearing loss).

 

1W to 10W to 100W to 1,000W is actually what it takes to be twice as loud (10 dBs).

These numbers show how ridiculous it can get chasing wattage.

 

Didn't someone say something about needing a good 5W amplifier or that just one of those stories?

Of course today a good 5W amplifier can be 20W or 50W or 100W or........

You are correct...I should have said SPL increase rather than loudness.

[CWelsh]

42 minutes ago, Tom05 said:

104 db/ meter , gives us reasonable protection  against clipping . 96 db  as in the Heresy II , much less so , particularly as the room  gets  bigger and the listening distance increases . It’s really about  how loud a guy wants to go . I like to have the capability to go extreme once in a while. It would seem ridiculous to me if  I  couldn’t fully play my Klipschorn /  Lascala front stage to its full potential , maybe I’m missing something here , or maybe not 🤓

I don't think you're missing anything. My question was never really about loudness, but about whether the extra watts add something to the overall sound other than that ability to play it louder.

[Tom05]

Yes , but loudness does come into play here . As the spl increases , transient peaks can be clipped and distortion happens . Fortunately tube amps tend to mask this much better than SS , but it happens, and to compound  our concerns , the tremendous dynamic range that we love about our Klipsch heritage speakers  ,  could be compromised if we were to over play the amp  . It really comes down to how loud you play . Sounds  like you don’t tax your speakers much , so I do think that Shakeydeals comments are important here . I also believe that others should  carefully consider as to how many watts are sufficient for their own particular needs . 🤓

[Gnote]

My opinion on your question is extra watts are just like extra horsepower . I don't think they mean anything until you NEED them .

But when you need them thank God you have them !

[Tom05]

“And there’s your dinner”

[82 Cornwalls]

2 hours ago, Gnote said:

My opinion on your question is extra watts are just like extra horsepower . I don't think they mean anything until you NEED them .

But when you need them thank God you have them !

 

And if you don't have what you need the speakers will tell you, if they are not complaining you are probably* fine.

 

As mentioned above solid state running out of steam is (usually) easier to hear. Low power class A solid state is probably more like tubes in this regard.

 

*depends on the listener and his listening skills

[the real Duke Spinner]

Bigger ..

Mo Better..

 

For Me ...Crown K2. 🙂

It's the only way I.B. Slammin (Terry). 😇

[Peter P.]

14 hours ago, CWelsh said:

 Do those additional unused watts (thanks @82 Cornwalls) contribute anything to the overall quality of the sound, or does the output capability strictly affect volume. I'm leaning to the idea that it is only SPL and other factors like current, topology, etc. are responsible for other aspects of the overall "sound".

 

 

Correct; those extra watts beyond 8W only contribute to the sound volume. You could say those 92 remaining watts are wasted, or your amp has capacity that will never be used. Now, if you had inefficient speakers such as electrostatics, you might need all those watts. And since a hardly audible 3dB increase in volume requires a doubling of power, to get any meaningful increase in volume requires tremendous increases in output wattage, at tremendous expense.