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How important is the number of watts a speaker system has?

B

b0mbrman

Lifer
To start with, I literally know nothing about speakers. For the most part, I know when one set sounds better than another but when looking at different speaker sets online, it's really hard to judge.

What I've done of late is look at the number of watts things have. At either extreme, this is a decent strategy. The Klipsch 4.1 is 400 watts, really crappy speakers that come with cheaper computer systems have 20 watts. In between those two, it gets kinda tricky.

One important middle seems to be at 40 watts. A lot of the speakers people here seem to be most excited about put out 40 watts...which seems like it should be crap compared to the Klipsch but they still sell within $100 of the Klipsch system...

Anyone have any help on this?
 
well, at least with computer speakers, wattage does usually equate to loudness, but really doesn't equate to quality..of course, if manufacturers put a lot of wattage into their systems, they usually at least try to make them decent quality speakers.

more than what i've just said, i can't offer much insight unless you have some specific models your looking at. can you give me some "middle" wattage examples?
 
One Important thing to watch out for is THE WATT - that you see writen in BIG leters on the box, It can be really tricky and the manufacturers know this. The play on the lay mans knowladge of "Bigger/more is better".

Some explanation on the Wattage:
Basically it is the Power output/consumption/labor that a speaker can manage/produce(in sound)

BUT there are two kinds of Wattages MAX and RMS (or Sinus/Regular)

The MAX is what the manufacturers like to put on the box, it is basically the double of the RMS.
MAX is the Peak Watt the the speacker could produce for one second or so (just before the point of smoking/burning out).
The regular or RMS is what you actually get, what you listen to.

Basically you never get a MAX output from a speaker in real life (if you do, its a gonner)

Another point is that no matter how they try to regulat the product Spec's law (or what ever its called), there is alway a way aroung it. Not only do most (expecially cheap) manufacturers, give you the MAX output as marketing, but the value is very fake. There is an instrument used to measure this, but it doesn't say how far away they put this from the speakers (probably 1 feet, which isn't where you listen to it from real life) and the type of room it is tested in also gives them some enforcment. The Voltage is an issue too. They don't mention the period that the speaker was able to produce the MAX, which is because it is like a nano-second and the speaker smoked.

Bottom line:

Quality has nothing to do with Wattage, trust your ears

Beware of cheap products (e.g. 1000Watts and $20🙂

Hope that was help.


EDIT: Pls excuse my spelling, i'm hungarian
 
You gotta differentiate between what kind of watts manufacturers are quoting, either PMPO (Peak music power output) or RMS. A system that is cabale of ,say, a 100watts RMS can be rated at 1000watts PMPO (which is just the perceived loudness). A speaker that can handle more power usually is a higher quality one that has bigger magnets and better materials in order to handle the strain. Distortion is also lower, which translates to better quality sound at the same volume levels as lower powered speakers.
 
I have some speakers rated for 50 watts music power (peak power), but the manufacturer warns against running any signal in excess of 8 volts RMS for over 2 minutes, which works out to 8 watts RMS for these 8-ohm speakers. The most realistic ratings for speakers are usually on the drivers themselves, and they're often much lower than the advertised numbers, even for RMS power and when the speaker contains only 1 driver.

It doesn't take much power to get fairly loud music. The typical speaker will put out 90 decibels 3 feet from it when 1 watt of electrical power is fed to it, or 100 decibels with 3 watts input.
 
Yeah, to expand on what Oalex said, some manufacturers of cheapo speakers will put "400Watts PMPO" on their products; basically assuming consumers know nothing about what PMPO stands for, but it basically equates to maximum wattage (far above the point where these speakers start sounding distorted, and about at the point which they blow their cones or overload their circuitry).

A system like the Klipsch Promedia 4.1 has 400Watts RMS; root mean squared, meaning these wattage levels "can" be reached during normal/heavy use, and they still sound good. The Promedia's happen to be one of the louder systems on the market.

However, the Promedia's aren't the highest rated. I believe Videologic's Digitheatre is the highest rated (and one of the most expensive) computer speaker packages out on the market, yet its RMS wattage is less than half of the Promedia's.
 
Yea, back in the old days, manufacturer's would have ridiculous wattage ratings, evidenced by too cheap of a price. A good saying was how a 1000 watt system would put out 999 watts of noise and 1 watt of music.

 
RMS power also has continuous and peak ratings. It may have a rating of 50w continuous/75w peak, meaning 50watts is the safest you can run it for an extended period while the peak rating is just headroom for those sudden spikes and surges in the sound. Another factor in determining how loud a speaker can go is its sensitivity. A speaker with high sensitivity will play sound material louder with less amp power.
 
Also remember wattage does not translate linearly to loudenss. In general you have to double the wattage to get a 3db increase in sound output. A speaker with an efficiency rating of 92db can put out the same volume with half the power of a speaker with an 89db rating.
 
Listening to a set-up is the only real way to tell what's best. The power rating is only a very vague guide... My 20W RMS Teac hifi can make my desk shake... And they're on arm mounts 2 meters up a wall! It's worth considering getting a 'real' hifi amp and speakers and connecting up the PC to a set of inputs on there. And with Dolby Digital and DTS amps coming down in price, you could get a very good system for a few hundred pounds/dollars.
 
*very important to me, I knocked off a vase in my resident advisor's dorm room 75ft away*

Note to all, 3 15's in a dorm room (one of them powered) is overkill.
 
There's a lot of good info being thrown around here...the simple answer to your question "How important is the wattage rating", the answer is "not very".

One thing companies like to ignore is Driver effeciency. Which is much more important to both loudness and more importantly quality.

For example, the Video Logic Sirocco Crossfires have about 80-100watts RMS (don't remember excatly, look it up at 3dss.com) but they are both louder and have much better quality than the 400watt RMS Klipsch ProMedias.

But on the flipside a good theatre will have thousands of watts in their speaker systems because they need that power to fill such a big room with loud sound. So more wattage does make a system louder.

But if you have poor effeciency drivers you can shove as many watts as you want at them and it's no use.


It's like anything:

[*]put a 400 horse power engine in a car with a crappy transmission and rear gearing and you get nothing on the road.
[*]ut a 1.7Ghz P4 in a rig with a TNT2m64 and you are lucky to get 60fps in 640x480.

You need balance. You need a decent level of wattage to get loudness but you also need good quality effecient drivers.

There isn't really a quantifiable way to measure driver effeciency....really what it comes down to is trust your own ears. Speakers are very subjective, and it's difficult to recommend for someone else.

For example, the vaunted Klipsch ProMedias are one of the worst speaker sets I've ever heard. I would rather burn the $300 than spend it on them....but many people love them. You need to try and listen and trust your own ears.

There is really no good way to shop for speakers online.
 
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