RF-82, What's too little power?

[rxescobar]

Recently, purchased a pair of RF-82's, very pleased. However, my processor, Yamaha DSP-A3090 only puts out 80 watts per channel. Am I hurting the speakers by playing at moderate volume levels or am I better off upgrading to a more powerful amp, say 140 per channel? Your comments are appreciated. Thank you.

[Guest " "]

80 watts per channel is certainly enough to drive them.

These have an spl of 98 db at 1 watt.

frequency response

33Hz-23kHz +/-3dB

power handling

150W RMS / 600W Peak

sensitivity

98dB @ 2.83V / 1m

nominal impedance

8 ohms compatible

high frequency drivers

1" (2.54cm) Titanium diaphragm compression driver mated to 90x60 square Tractrix® Horn

high freq crossover

2000Hz

low frequency drivers

Dual 8" (20.3cm) Cerametallic cone woofers

enclosure type

Bass-reflex via dual rear-firing ports

[SET12]

Yeah!

My Forte's are 98db/watt and I get in excess of 100db listening levels in a 14ftx18ft room from 10 watts of single-ended tube power easy!

So you shouldn't have any issues unless something is wrong with your amp!

SET12

[Guest BobG]

I'll answer your question with another question; what's too little volume? RF-82s can be powered nicely with 80 watts per channel, unless you want playback SPL that demands more than 80 watts on musical peaks. If that's the case, you may need much more than 80 or even 140 watts. Going to 140 provides less than 3 dB of additional headroom which isn't much considering the cost for the added power. When people do determine they have too little power for their volume requirements, I generally suggest moving up at least 6 dB. In your case, that would be to 320 watts - or a reduced averagle listening level.

[JetJockey]

Hi there, your amp may be sufficient to run your 82's but Klipsch recomends power equal to or greater than recomended RMS power handling for each model, in your case it is 150 RMS. I am in the same boat as you. I am running a Yamaha RXV2500 rated at 130 wpc with my Rf83's which are rated at 250 RMS!!...lol...they sound fantastic but am looking forward to getting at least a 250 wpc seperate amp, should be fun.

[brennyE]

there is no such thing as to much power as long as you dont overdrive your speakers. better to have the headroom than not have it. I can still remember a forum member (cant quite recal whom) always made sure his amplifier could deliver 10db more than he listened to! so if he listened to his set-up using on average 100WRMS he would use an amplifier with the capabilities of over 800WMRS!!! lol I am getting a pair of RF-82's but will be powering them with a pair of 200WRMS monoblock power amps, which is although modest compared to 800W it will do the job for me.

Maybe you could lend a higher powered amplifier to see if you think its worth buying?

[ben.]

aargh...

There may be no such thing as too much power, but there is such a thing as worse sound...

How do your speakers sound with what you have? If you get plenty of volume but want things to sound better, seek higher quality components. These may or may not be higher power amplifiers. Usually not, IME...

What Klipsch speaker can be tolerated with 100W RMS average input in a home?

[mike stehr]

"What Klipsch speaker can be tolerated with 100W RMS average input in a home?"

Say it's a kegger in the college kid home, 50, 100 people.

Say you got a old pair of Cornwalls, plenty broke in and work well. Beer stains, watermarks and trashed veneer.

Powered by some new or old mega-watt pro-sound gear or whatever.....6 hours into it everyone's getting really buckled....Hell, say it's a spodie. Everyone wants to jam out in a drunken stupor. That's when they can tolerate 100 RMS average. The Cornwalls may on the verge of frapping, but everyone is drunk....there is no critical listening......

Then a fight breaks out and someone stuffs a foot in a Cornwall in the ensuing drunken brawl. Damn parties........

[JetJockey]

Lmao, Mike, good one. As far as 100wpc goes, thats nothing with a low end receiver, we are not talking $5000 tube set ups running 70wpc. And its not about volume its about low end grunt, headroom and dynamic range, clipping thresh hold is especially important if you are going to run your speakers at loud settings. Why do people insist that they know more than the people who design and build these things?

[ben.]

Lmao, Mike, good one. As far as 100wpc goes, thats nothing with a low end receiver, we are not talking $5000 tube set ups running 70wpc. And its not about volume its about low end grunt, headroom and dynamic range, clipping thresh hold is especially important if you are going to run your speakers at loud settings. Why do people insist that they know more than the people who design and build these things?

For some people it's about music sounding better. Price wasn't mentioned, but a cheap 100WPC reciever is usually not the path to better sound, regardless of which qualities one favors.

Which people insisted they know more than the people who design and build these things?

I do know this - I've heard high power Crowns (Micro-tech 1200 and Power Base 2) that sound like chewing glass compared to my Mc30 or $75 Teac Tripath amp. Did they have more "grunt"? I guess so, but I like to listen to music. I did crank the system up to 110dB at the listening position earlier this week just to remind myself what it was like. With Klipschorns just over 2m from my head, do you think my Mc30 were clipping? That's about 4W average, so 40W peaks? That's be on paper and disregarding all sorts of things that matter like room gain and possible miscalibration of my Radio Shack meter. My normal listening SPL is under 80dB average and I get plenty of musical satisfaction that way.

I wasn't suggesting that high power has no place or is the wrong choice, only that it often leads to compromises in sound quality that I and many others here choose to avoid.

IMO, YMMV, etc....

[brennyE]

oops my bad I wrongly interpreted the question. To me it sounded like he wanted to go louder and not harm the speakers (and if that was the case I stick by my last post)

although I agree that 100WRMS of power into most Klipsch speakers is a tad bit harsh, I always have this much power and then some ( because I find that 99% of the time if you have a huge amp and only run it 1/4 power or so it makes the speakers sound alot more "together" and sharp at loud levels, but this is just me [])

[SET12]

Lmao, Mike, good one. As far as 100wpc goes, thats nothing with a low end receiver, we are not talking $5000 tube set ups running 70wpc. And its not about volume its about low end grunt, headroom and dynamic range, clipping thresh hold is especially important if you are going to run your speakers at loud settings. Why do people insist that they know more than the people who design and build these things?

For some people it's about music sounding better. Price wasn't mentioned, but a cheap 100WPC reciever is usually not the path to better sound, regardless of which qualities one favors.

Which people insisted they know more than the people who design and build these things?

I do know this - I've heard high power Crowns (Micro-tech 1200 and Power Base 2) that sound like chewing glass compared to my Mc30 or $75 Teac Tripath amp. Did they have more "grunt"? I guess so, but I like to listen to music. I did crank the system up to 110dB at the listening position earlier this week just to remind myself what it was like. With Klipschorns just over 2m from my head, do you think my Mc30 were clipping? That's about 4W average, so 40W peaks? That's be on paper and disregarding all sorts of things that matter like room gain and possible miscalibration of my Radio Shack meter. My normal listening SPL is under 80dB average and I get plenty of musical satisfaction that way.

I wasn't suggesting that high power has no place or is the wrong choice, only that it often leads to compromises in sound quality that I and many others here choose to avoid.

IMO, YMMV, etc....

That was very well put Ben!

I recently had the pleasure of listening to 3 watts from Antique Sounds Tulip! A great looking amp and sounds as nice as it looks we were doing a flea amp shoot out up against a 7 watt Cary 300B kit amp power house listening with LaScala's rated at 104db/watt.

Using a Radio Shack meter we were at 95db levels at our chair at 1 watt peaks!

I find that in alot of circumstances I can use a rule of a 10db loss from the 1 meter reading of a loudspeaker to the 3 meter reading at my chair.

I also measured average voltage which was usaully under a volt and not much higher than a 1 1/2 volts translated to watts thats 125 - 280 milliwatts average power for those one watt peaks.

These are Single-Ended amps that can respone with burst power that often goes well beyond their continuous power ratings this sometimes can be as high as 5 x their

continuous rating and PP can be as high as 2 1/2 times their rating as well so clipping with these amps is much different than SS which has been shown to be like hitting a brick wall at clipping in other words don't expect the overhead that tubes can give.

Now whats interesting is my own setup in contrast to the LaScala arrangement.

I have 10 watts with my Fortes rated at 98db/watt with the volumes that I reach which is in excess of 100db at my chair.

Now when taking the LaScala's into consideration for the same levels that I reach with my 10 watt amps and Fortes the LaScala's can reach my same levels with just 2 1/2 watts!

Thats pretty amazing in my book! And no wonder we never ran into any issues of not enough volume with 3 watts.

Now lets take a typical 88db efficient speaker 10 watts gets to 88db at the chair! 100watts gets to 98db at the chair and 200watts gets to 101db at your chair and if it could take it 1000watts would get to the 108db level at the chair!

No wonder why I love these Klipsch's with Single-Ended amps that have a wealth of harmonic imformation that just bloom's with Klipsch's and if your into Transmitting Triodes as I am you can have even more grunt that can be competitive with SS!

So how was the Bass in the flea power setup? Very,very good! for tube bass none of us had any desire for the last bit of grunt that SS can give! In fact the owner of the LaScala's said who needs a Sub? With the performance that we were hearing!

Although I like great bass as much as alot of people! I am more concern about 100-20000hz than 20-100hz although I have my limits of poor performance. And I have no issues with what I have in my systems performance.

I get an even deeper response and low end grunt down into the low 30's that I can feel in my chair from the Fortes with my own outboard crossovers but I had to agree the LaScalas were very good with bass!

I might add that he is using a DIY crossover based on the ALK which is a huge factor in the ability of the LaScalas bass performance IMO.

SET12