Quad-D Posted June 8, 2001 Share Posted June 8, 2001 I have seen a lot of posts regarding how many watts are needed to power a pair of Klipsch speakers. I know that they are very efficient and don't need much. My question is - can you ever have too much? I have an Onkyo 787 (100 watts/channel) powering my RF3, RC3, RS3 and KSW12. The stereo is in our great room which is about 22'x25' with vaulted ceilings peaking at ~18'. With that much space, it takes a lot of sound to be loud. On occasion, I have been known to run the system at about 75% max power (which is pretty darn loud). There are no signs of clipping, distortion etc. The speakers track the volume perfectly. My concern is whether that much power or more can ever hurt my speakers. Any thoughts? Quad-D p.s. If they do get damaged, it won't be a good enough excuse for my wife to let me upgrade to a pair of RF7s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J2OHN Posted June 8, 2001 Share Posted June 8, 2001 Hey quad-d the rf3's will handel 225 watts of power and up to 800 continuos so you will be ok and can even go higher, so turn it up, they need the power..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mighty Favog Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 Whoooaa!! That 225wpc number is continuous not the 800wpc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myram Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 My Adcom GFA-555 puts out 200 wpc rms and has never been a problem with giving too much power for my Quartets, or the KG4's before them. In all reality I never use the full 200 wpc, because if I did use all 200 wpc I would be getting approx. 118db of sound.....and that is just way too much in a house. To get 100 db, which is pretty loud, I only need to use about 10 watts of power.....the other 190 watts is more for heavy bass or to cover the dynamics of the music. Hope that helps....it's kind of hard to explain. Good Luck. ------------------ Home Theater System: Klipsch Quartets - mains for both systems Klipsch KV3 - center Klipsch KG.5's - rear surrounds Klipsch KSW12 subwoofer Denon AVR-1601 Music System: Adcom GFA-555 Musical Concepts Modified NAD 1600 Pre/Tuner Sony C-67ES CD Player Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klewless Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 Too much power? That depends on which of several camps to which you belong. Some people believe that powerful amps do not behave at extremely low power (but do better when they have to send out lots of power). Some believe it doesn't really matter. Part of the decision depends on how big your room, how loud you like it, how much of what you play is bass content, etc. As long as you have enough power, I believe that it is more a matter of the quality of the amp. It's all in the design. And I believe that design parameter applies to both tube and solid state amps. Obviously you can simply send in enough power to literally cook your speakers. In that sense it is possible to have too much power. Hope this helps. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 Klewless pointed out a notable problem with big amps. I have fried 4 subwoofer drivers (at one time) with an amp that was capable of power output about 100 wpc greater than my subs were rated for. I was listening to heavy metal with a STRONG bass line. So, you CAN have too much power, but it's normally less of a problem than too little being pushed into clipping. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
USparc Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 Can you ever have too much power??? NO NO NO NO It is not just the specified power rating of your amp that counts!! You have also take in acount the behaviour of the speaker. It is a dynamical system and that is why you have to be careful in matching speakers and amplifiers. Most amplifiers are rated at certain standards like DIN, but don't be surprised if the amplifier gives only about less than half of it's power at a different impedance and phase shift. I don't know about the RF-3's. Do they stay at 8 Ohms all over the range??? For the highs propably no problem, what about the woofers?? In eather way my Onkyo seems to give them what they need ------------------ ------------------------- Receiver: Onkyo 676 DVD: Pioneer DV-525 Screen: Thomson 46" RetroProjection Front: RF-3's Rear: RF-3's Center: RC-3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DwK Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 No.. you cant have to much power... dont believe me? as my school. For our Orchestra Talent show.. we used probobly 2 (saw one), 1500 watt Pennys. With only about 100 people. While they didnt have it turned up all the way ( because I wasnt there ) Thats ALOT of power for a talent show. But as pointed out by other people, it depends on you. Do you care about your hearing? IF you dont... then it probobly wouldnt bother you getting 5 K-Horns and pushing them to the MAX, and wanting more.... Can the speakers handle it? If so, push them, unless you value your hearing. As for your system Its safe. ------------------ K6-2 450 SB Live Value ( not 5.1) Klipsch Pro Media v2 400 ( soon to be 4.1 ) 2 Fisher STV-873's on front channel 2 Fisher surrounds on rear channel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Klewless Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 I forgot to mention, that it is more likely to damage a speaker system with an under powered amp than an over powered one in normal use. That is because the under powered amp when pushed too hard may clip or go berserk and send something close to DC to the speaker (solid state here, don't know exactly how tubes go bananas). Guaranteed disaster if you have my kind of luck. ------------------ John P St Paul, MN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quad-D Posted June 10, 2001 Author Share Posted June 10, 2001 Thanks for all of the comments. I was pretty confident that I would not damage my system but needed the reassurance of the experts on this BB. I saved way too long to get the Klipsch system to loose them because I was pushing it too hard. I do have another question though. How are people monitoring the wattage output of their amps. Myram and others have mentioned that they are only using a few watts to power their systems. Are you actually measuring the voltage/current and calculating the wattage, measuring the wattage directly, or is it a nifty function of your receiver? Just curious. Quad-D p.s. when I told my wife that I had 8 replies in less 24 hours, she thought we are all a bunch of geeks. I don't think she understands how loyal/obsessed Klipsch owners are. The quality of the Klipsch speakers was what first attracted me but this BB was what sold me. I don't know of any other manufacture that would allow owners to rant and rave about their speaker quality, about their business practices, and even about politics. Thanks again for the input and thanks Klipsch for a great product and a great site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myram Posted June 10, 2001 Share Posted June 10, 2001 I calculate the wattage used by using my Radio Shack SPL meter. I know that my Quartets do 97.5 db/1 watt/1meter... so I just set up the SPL meter 1 meter from the speaker and go from there. You double the power to gain 3db so it would look something like this..... 1 watt = 97.5db 2 watts = 100.5db 4 watts = 103.5db 8 watts = 106.5db 16 watts = 109.5db 32 watts = 112.5db 64 watts = 115.5db 128 watts = 118.5db 256 watts = 121.5db So as you can see......I really never need my full 200wpc, but it is good to have the reserve power for dynamics of the music. ------------------ Home Theater System: Klipsch Quartets - mains for both systems Klipsch KV3 - center Klipsch KG.5's - rear surrounds Klipsch KSW12 subwoofer Denon AVR-1601 Music System: Adcom GFA-555 Musical Concepts Modified NAD 1600 Pre/Tuner Sony C-67ES CD Player Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BobG Posted June 10, 2001 Share Posted June 10, 2001 Just because I can never leave well enough alone... Speakers are air-cooled electric motors. They have a really bad conversion efficiency meaning most of the amp power is converted to heat rather than sound. Most speakers are less than 2% efficient. For example, our Klipschorn, rated at 104 dB 1 w / 1 M needs a full 100 watts RMS input to generate something on the order of 5 ACOUSTIC watts. That is energy in the form of moving air. Most home speakers can't come close to that level of acoustic power. Use too little amp power, and turn it up too loud and amp distortion kills drivers - mostly high frequency drivers as that's where the harmonic distortion piles up. Use too much amp power and turn it up too loud and you can generate more voice coil heat than the air cooling can dissipate and then ANY driver can die. Tweeters more likely than woofers cause they have less robust coils, but any driver can cook. Finally, WAY too much power can pop voice coils just like the wire in a fuse burns, but that amount of power is unlikely. More likely is the chance of overpowering so that you make drivers move back and forth too far, whacking them against the mechanical limits of travel and damaging them. This is usually pretty audible unless it's about 3 am after a long night of partying. Then anything is possible. Bottom line is that somewhere between 1 and 100 watts is usually about all you can use per channel. It's easier to go louder by increasing speaker sensitivity rather than amp power. Too little power is more dangerous than too much if you try to play loud. Stop me before I start talking about crest factor... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted June 11, 2001 Share Posted June 11, 2001 Just because I can't let BobG be the only one who can never leave well enough alone... Keeping in the spirit of nothing succeeds like excess, I am personal, living proof that yes, it IS possible to have too much power. Difficult, but possible... Won't go into all details here (have posted this story several time different forums here), but suffice it to say that playing some Dead using an Adcom GFA555 amp bridged into mono (600 watts into 8 ohms) to power a poor Dalquist subwoofer rated at a maximum continuous input of 75 watts while one is outside helping one's bud clean his boat will, in at least one documented case, result in truly horrific catatrophic failer of various bits and pieces in said subwoofer. Not to mention a difficult to remove, burned plastic smell permeating the listening room for several days. Ray "oops..." Garrison ------------------ Music is art Audio is engineering Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted June 12, 2001 Share Posted June 12, 2001 Acutally I think you can have to much power, especially if the power is not too clean. I have Heresy 2's and was driving them from a Yamaha 595a via a rotel 1080 power amp (200 wpc). On a rather bassy track we were pushing a little too hard and popped a woofer. Needless to say we wacked the volume down immediately. We seem to have got away with things and since then I have switched setups to an integrated Accuphase E211 running at 4 ohms / 130 wpc. Not a pop since.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DwK Posted June 12, 2001 Share Posted June 12, 2001 HOW MANY watts were you putting into those Heresys?? And where the heck were you? I believe the Yamaha we have is about 160 or 120 watts. And I cant even get the thing above half way with out hurting my ears. Thats about 60 or 80 watts... ------------------ Living Room: Yamaha Natural Sound A-500 Stereo Amplifier 2 Klipsch Heresys on A switch 2 Fisher STV-873 on B switch My Room: Klipsch Pro Medias 2 Fisher Surrounds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mace Posted June 12, 2001 Share Posted June 12, 2001 DwK, Some amplifier makers "load up" the front end, or the first half of the volume dial putting most of the power there. This can make the amp seem more impressive since the guy on the showroom floor can turn it up to 11 'o clock and blow away potential customer, who thinks the amp has more than twice as much power as he's hearing, which lots of times just isn't true. I've always been curious as to the ampfilier setting vs. watts output for my amp. But I don't know if there's any way to truly measure it. It's a tricky game since the amp puts out current and resistance is always changing from the speaker (it's frequency dependant).. so watts aren't really continuous either. Anyway... what I find important with amplifiers is how much dynamic headroom they have and how much current they can produce... that is, how well they can handle peaks. Some amps only have about 1-2 dB of dynamic headroom while others have up to 6. The more headroom, the more alive and dynamic the music sounds. Now that I think about what I just wrote... why does my amp put out more Watts at lower impedence setting??? It peaks at 160 W at 8 ohm and 200 W at 4 ohm setting (40 W RMS regardless of ohm setting). I thought watts are I*R. And yes, I'm a believer that you can have too much power.. if you value your ears!! Mace Denon/NAD/Klipsch What else do you need?? This message has been edited by mace on 06-12-2001 at 09:16 PM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted June 13, 2001 Share Posted June 13, 2001 "HOW MANY watts were you putting into those Heresys??" The Rotel power amp is rated at 200wpc @ 8 ohms. I was at 12 o'clock on the dial which should be around 100wpc - the limit of continuous for the speakers. THe music playing was madonna and I would guess that I probably pushed the 400 wpc peak. "And where the heck were you?" Standing well back (at home). "I believe the Yamaha we have is about 160 or 120 watts." The Yammy was not acting as amp but pre-amp using the main outs into the Rotel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ray Garrison Posted June 13, 2001 Share Posted June 13, 2001 Hey, Max, You can't really read too much into the position of the volume control and how it relates to the amount of power you're pushing. 1) There's no standard that says that manufacturers have to set the volume control up so that turning half way round the dial means you're using half power. By placing most of the gain at lower end of the control, you can make it seem like your receiver or amp is more powerful than some other amp in the showroom because yours gets louder sooner. Almost every integrated amp I've ever used had a combination of line level gain and volume control that had it putting out the maximum power with about a 2/3 rotation of the volume knob. 2) Some volume controls are linear, some are logarithmic. 3) In any case, amount of output power at given position on volume control is going to be dependent on the voltage produced by the source component. For example, at a given (fairly loud) point in a song on a CD, you might find that CD Player #1 is outputting 1.5 volts, CD Player #2 is outputting 1 volt, and CD Player #3 is outputting 2 volts. (There's supposed to be a standard that says that the 0dB reference point, or full level signal, should produce exactly 2 volts at the CD player's output, but from reviews I've seen this is often ignored.) Obviously, if you have these three CD players hooked into three different inputs on your receiver, and switch between them, the volume level is going to be very different. Ray ------------------ Music is art Audio is engineering Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J M O N Posted June 14, 2001 Share Posted June 14, 2001 Can you ever have too much power? That depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you are concerned about damaging your speakers, then the answer should be no, "you can't have too much CLEAN power". You are more likely going to damage your speakers when driving them hard by not having enough clean power, than you would with having too much. If you don't have enough power, your amp will clip and could damage your speakers. You can damage your speaker by running too much power into them, but that damage will happen at a higher level than if you don't have enough power. If you are concerned about sound quality at the volume level you will be listenting to, then as others have mentioned, some amps may sound better at certain power outputs. If there is a difference in sound quality at different power levels, huge amps are generally going to sound better at higher power levels (they're big because they are meant to be used with speakers that NEED that much power and are designed to sound better at those higher power levels). With Klipsch speakers being so efficient, you are not going to be using much power even at very loud levels. So an amp that is designed to sound better at lower power levels could be a better choice. Of course, you still want to make sure your amp has enough power to handle the transients in the music. The smallest audible difference in volume level a human ear can supposedly detect is 2 dB. Of course that is a very small difference, barely noticable. In order to increase the output of your sound by 3 dB, you have to increase the power by twice the amount. It is not a linear relationship. That is why a 100 watt amp is not much different than a 200 watt amp in terms of volume -- you only get 3 dB difference in volume level. It doesn't matter if you're at .01 watts or at 100 watts, to increase the volume by 3 dB, you have to double the power. I believe that most preamps will have a logarithmic volume control -- that is, the more you turn the knob, the faster the power output increases. This is so that the relative volume level increases in a relatively linear fashion. For example, at 8:00, you might have .01 watts. At 9:00, you might have .1 watts, at 10:00, you might have 1 watt, and at 11:00 you might have 10 watts (this is just an example of course). If the volume control was linear, then at the very beginning, a slight adjustment will increase the volume substantially, wheras as you turn the knob further and further, you would hear less and less change to the volume. This is because of the "twice the power = 3 dB increase in volume" rule. Now, what position you have the volume knob at with respect to the power output is going to vary from preamp/receiver to preamp/receiver. This is a result of preamps/receivers having different gain settings. Use a different preamp, and you might have a different volume level at the same volume control position with the very same power amp. With that in mind, it's tough to say what the maximum volume level you can adjust your preamp should be. This is also going to depend on if you are using an equalizer or tone controls with the levels boosted (those are essentially like volume controls, but only controlling certain frequencies). In my own use, I am careful to never go past the 1:00 position on my preamp. I do not use an equalizer or tone controls. This is just a rule of thumb that I use that means different things to different preamps, but so far I have not damaged a single speaker. With Klipsch speakers, 1:00 is very, very loud, so I very rarely push my speakers that hard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KGeist Posted June 14, 2001 Share Posted June 14, 2001 0 dB is considered to be the threshold of hearing. However, it is an arbitrary value that, by itself, doesn't mean a whole lot. The reason for this is because the term decibel is used to describe a power "ratio" and therefore doesn't have any meaning unless it is referenced to something. For example, 10 dB doesn't tell you much other than the magnitude of diffence between two unknown quantites. OTOH, 10 dB referenced to 1 watt, is 10 watts. I point this out is because 0 dB Sound Pressure Level is referenced to .0002 dyn/cm2. But again, this is an arbitrary value that is considered, more or less, to be the threshold of hearing. However, it is interesting to note, under some circumstances and at some frequencies, very good ears (no doubt young ears) can hear negative levels of dB. Kerry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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