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Speaker/amp/reference question

G

Goosemaster

Lifer
I am asking only for reference purposes, as I don?t have money to spend.

I have lived under the impression that what matters when driving speakers is
A) Quality speakers
B) Good clean power

I have on more than one occasion heard that one should not make the mistake of relying on power-handling rating alone.

That said, I have a question:


Assuming that I have reasonably good speakers (Mirage), what are the practical liberties that I can take with power handling numbers?

(I do not know the dynamic capability numbers for my speakers)

For example, my Mirage Frx-5?s can handle between 15 and 150watts RMS. Would it be feasible to hook them up to a 375/ch (dynamic max) Integrated amp?

From vantage point, it would be possible, but I would be worried about overloading them?.

Please provide details if you know what is correct.


Thanks
 
The danger with speakers is much more often that of hooking them up to an amplifier that's not powerful enough. Usually the woofers are able to handle a lot of power, but the tweeters aren't. For music, that's how the power spectrum looks, so that doesn't cause a problem.

But if you overdrive the amp, you lop off the tops of the waveforms, which hugely increases the amount of energy in the higher octaves and can kill the tweeters.

Hooking them up to a 375w/ch amp shouldn't be a problem for normal listening levels (even pretty darned loud).
 
Originally posted by: Trygve
The danger with speakers is much more often that of hooking them up to an amplifier that's not powerful enough. Usually the woofers are able to handle a lot of power, but the tweeters aren't. For music, that's how the power spectrum looks, so that doesn't cause a problem.

But if you overdrive the amp, you lop off the tops of the waveforms, which hugely increases the amount of energy in the higher octaves and can kill the tweeters.

Hooking them up to a 375w/ch amp shouldn't be a problem for normal listening levels (even pretty darned loud).
Click to expand...

Sweet.
 
if your speakers aren't fused or have breakers built into them, i'd suggest doing it. As said before, you get better sound by running a 150W speaker with a 375W amp than if you tried to use a 150W amp. You just run the risk of blowing a speaker.

Since most amps transform and rectify the power going into them, power quality isn't that big of a deal. Just make sure that the amp has a low %THD. A putting a small input inductor on your power feed to the amp (2-3% p.u.) might help the rectification, but if you have a good amp, you wouldn't need it.


EDIT: If your amp has a 375w/ch max output, its actual RMS output might be a lot less. RMS Power = 0.707*Peak Power
 
more power = better. Although you can overdrive speakers with more power and slap the woofers.

as always if it sounds harsh or seems lacking in dynamics

turn it down
 
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