Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
This has been bugging me for a while. I have two HD amps, IB15s, Dyn MW182, 430, and 102s. The system is very dynamic like a live concert when playing at half way sane volumes. When I really lay the power down, I'm talking much louder than I normally listen to it (and I like it loud) even though there's no audible distortion, it begins sounding a little more compressed, less dynamic. Would most consider this the limit of the amplifiers, when those dynamics start going away?
I've been thinking of adding another 900/5 for 500w to each midbass, bridge the other section of one of the 900/5s for the midrange for 150-200w for the midranges and use the remaining channels for the tweeters at 100w. Subs would get either a 750/1 or 1200/1.
I guess the other cause could be the loudness contour of the stock HU. Not sure if that's done in the HU or factory amp that's long gone. I'm not in a hurry to solve this issue, I never listen to it loud enough to cause this unless I'm doing just to see what it can do.
'84 GN 10.60@ 127mph. Infinity 3.5 coaxials and a cheap Sony HU.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
Quote:
Originally Posted by benny
Power compression of the drivers themselves. There really is no replacement for displacement
I've got displacement, two 15" subs, two 10" midbass, two 3.5" midrange, and 1.25" tweeters, all with a good amount of excursion available.
All speakers are being driven well below their rated rms wattage and 1/10th their peak rating which is why I'm leaning toward the power side and not speaker side. In fact, I don't have enough power available to hit the long term power ratings on any of the speakers other than the tweeters. Every speaker is crossed over in a very safe area. The 15s are cut off at 20hz but there's not a whole lot down there anyway. The midbasses are cut off at 63hz which is cake for 10s. Midrange is highpassed at 320hz and tweeters at 6khz. All at 24db.
'84 GN 10.60@ 127mph. Infinity 3.5 coaxials and a cheap Sony HU.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
What you described is a classic example of power compression. You can add more power until the cows come home but it's only going to be wasted to heat. This is why a lot of people use pro drivers.
Just out of curiosity, what is the sensitivity rating on the midbasses?
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
Let me start over. Once I hit the point where it seems to be losing dynamics it will get louder if I keep cranking on it, but it starts to sound more compressed. I doubt every speaker hits power compression at the same time especially the subs that are thermally rated for 500w and have at most 250w each available.
Sensitivity of the 10s is 87db 1w/1m and the 3.5s are 88.6 1w/1m according to the klippel and Dyn.
I need to do more research on the stock HU and if it has the loudness curve or if it's in the amp.
Thanks for the replies so far.
'84 GN 10.60@ 127mph. Infinity 3.5 coaxials and a cheap Sony HU.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
I wonder if this is because of peak power. I notice that class D amps do not list a peak power. Maybe its not that much higher than the continuous power. So straining the amp for the RMS maybe means the peak is falling off or something similar. This is all just speculation. Maybe that is making the power sag alittle at full tilt.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BeatsDownLow
I wonder if this is because of peak power. I notice that class D amps do not list a peak power. Maybe its not that much higher than the continuous power. So straining the amp for the RMS maybe means the peak is falling off or something similar. This is all just speculation. Maybe that is making the power sag alittle at full tilt.
Definitely. I have a couple of 2x150 Focal amps, I could always throw them in there bridged and see what happens but with the amps under the seats it's no longer a 5 minute job.
'84 GN 10.60@ 127mph. Infinity 3.5 coaxials and a cheap Sony HU.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
Short answer... Yes.
I am also running IB 15's and have played around with alot of different amps. I was happy with a solid 700watts to each. Then i tried 2500 watts to the pair. I learned 2 things, damn, these subs ( arc 15's ) play loud and i found the missing dynamics that i was lacking. 2nd thing i learned, i need better subs. i started running into the limitations of the cone materials.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
Do you bridge your amp? Based on my experiences I try to find powerful and suitable amp to drive the dynaudio midbass and the midrange, tweeter in active setup. Never try to bridge any of the amps involving and have great result in term of live and dynamic reproduction.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
Its likely clipping, it usually happens before you think it does. When I put a larger amp on highs it came alive at higher volumes. When you get loud enough your ears even compress the sound so I never really figured out the point of it, excepting the feeling of the sound pressure in bass ranges....which is why I have IB 15s lol.
Pioneer 880PRS~boston comps/alpine coax on Kappa 4 Z~back to Alpine mrd-m500 v12 on pyle 15s IB
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
Quote:
Originally Posted by asawendo
Do you bridge your amp? Based on my experiences I try to find powerful and suitable amp to drive the dynaudio midbass and the midrange, tweeter in active setup. Never try to bridge any of the amps involving and have great result in term of live and dynamic reproduction.
Nothing is bridged... yet. I started to remove the seat to bridge it but got lazy. So the 182s have 150w available as do the 430s. I can easily bridge the 182s for 300w each which would leave only 100w for each 430 but I think that's a fair trade. I've talked to some really knowledgeable people, one in particular that tend to size an amp several times more powerful than the long term power handling of the speakers it's powering just for dynamics. Apparently the more power supplies the better so instead of going with a monster 4 channel amp with 1 power supply you might be better off going with 4 mono amps. I wish JL made a 300w mono HD.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sqshoestring
Its likely clipping, it usually happens before you think it does. When I put a larger amp on highs it came alive at higher volumes. When you get loud enough your ears even compress the sound so I never really figured out the point of it, excepting the feeling of the sound pressure in bass ranges....which is why I have IB 15s lol.
You know, I think you're on to something about our ears compressing some of it. My ears actually get plugged up when I crank it to the level that it sounds like it's compressing. I have to pop them as you would do at altitude to clear them. If that were the case, I guess I would be at MY limit lol. I wonder if a good test would be to stand outside of the car with the doors open and using the MS8's remote to turn up the volume. Do you think this would be accurate to take my ears out of the equation, standing 5-10' away from the car?
I think you started a trend with the Pyles. More than 10 people are doing IB setups over at acurazine and the Pyles are really catching on over there as well. It seems like cheap subs are more likely to do well in IB. I really want to try a pair but I don't have another car to do it in. The mounting diameter looks a hair to large to swap them in the AE IB15 holes.
'84 GN 10.60@ 127mph. Infinity 3.5 coaxials and a cheap Sony HU.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
I purchased all of my amps just to have extreme headroom. I was originally going to have 650 watts on tap for each of my mids and then approximately 100 watts on tap for my horns.
I ended up selling my horns and one of my amps before getting to do that install. Now I have 175 watts on tap for each mid and each tweeter and I run into the same issue you are. With mids anyway. I couldn't imagine needing more than 175 watts on each tweeter.
When I get my next car I plan to do a 3 way front(similar to yours) and plan to have an amp on each midbass an amp on my pair of midranges, and an amp on my tweeters. I will probably use a 4 channel on the portions with single amps though so I can have independent left/right gains.
Sorry if all of this is a run on sentence or poorly worded. My phone is being a dirty whore tonight and not showing everything
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
Im running 300 watts per 5x7 in a ported enclosure, 150 per horn and 2500 to the Arc 15's. You can listen to it with out fatiguing for well, i do it for hour plus quite often and im hitting 140db TOTAL output. when cranking the sub i may get 145 but its clean and fun to listen to.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
This is all I can say but up to you to figure this out.
Lets take my speaker setup for example because I understand my situation
Tweeter: Sensitivity = 91.5 dB at 1 watt/1 meter
Mids: Sensitivity: 89 dB at 1 watt/1meter
"Sensitivity of the 10s is 87db 1w/1m and the 3.5s are 88.6 1w/1m according to the klippel and Dyn."
As you can tell, my drivers are more efficient witch means mine requires less power to power them. This we all know. Then there is the power ratting and yada yada witch adds more loudness.
Next we have to look at is the size of driver. Yes your 10" is bigger then my 7" driver but is less efficient. You will get louder since the size outweighs its weakness in loudness.
Now we look at power ratting. All speakers have a thermal/max input power that they can properly handle/ play to their potential. This is called RMS. Then the musicale peaks/ dynamics are the WATTS. This is when a note gets really loud or some crazy ass $hit goes down. RMS and WATTS are directly related. For example: speaker has 250 RMS handling. You can effectively say it requires 250 RMS to play it to its MAX potential of its RATED frequency range!! Why is it rated at this to its range you might ask. This all goes back to lower notes need more power and higher notes need less. Lets not forget the OHMS at those frequencies. Change the range, you can change the amount of power it can handle. I'm not going into this to add more confusion. Now since we have 250 RMS, we can safely say it would like to have 500 watts of power for peak. Now amps aren't always to their spec. So the amp rating of QUALITY you look for should be around 300-350 RMS to MAX out that speaker/ power it to its full potential. People say you need MORE and yada yada. I'm not getting into that either to make this more simple. I'm giving what you should know and take what you like.
There is also a acoustics of a car, how much we can tolerate, axis and much more to making a driver sound louder.
Bottom line of what YOU described, you need more power ^_^.
Note: my speakers get so loud, within 2 or so minutes of listening and turning it off, I get ringing in my ear for a few minutes and don't realize it since it is properly done.
How do you know your at the speakers limits? It should BE PERFECT SOUND UNTIL it clips. NOTHING else. If it sounds weird before its mechanical noise, your doing something wrong. Examples of wrong: Turning it up makes it sound like @ss, fuzzy sounds, and playing it out of its range.
Golden rule: You know a good audio system when you turn it up more and more and it doesn't bother your ears and just sounds better.
LAST INFO TIDBIT:
Pmax Rated Power Input (No Crossover): 150 watts (AES Standard). You can see they say NO crossover. I have one. Means they want more than 150. I got a good 230 RMS at 12v for them. I'm perfectly powering them. Would like more but it's doing what it should. If I could, I would like 300 RMS but I'm not going to notice a difference (mechanical is where I ALWAYS hear weird things going on, never compression)
Pmax (With Recommended Minimum Crossover) = 125 watts OR Pmax: Maximum Power Input (No Crossover) = 50 watts (AES Standard)
You are wondering WTF is this ratting???? If I don't use a crossover with them, they can play the whole frequency range with 50 rms.LOL. But I got them with a crossover and give them 230 RMS at 12v as well. I noticed a HUGE HUGE difference from 25 rms to 230 rms.
My subs on the other hand well, they are your subs as well with only 230 RMS and they sound like @ss before their mechanical limit since I can't power them fully I wish I had 500 MINIMUM and 800-1k max for them but I just want one amp to power my goodies.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sqshoestring
When you get loud enough your ears even compress the sound . . . .
Quote:
Originally Posted by BuickGN
You know, I think you're on to something about our ears compressing some of it. My ears actually get plugged up when I crank it to the level that it sounds like it's compressing. I have to pop them as you would do at altitude to clear them. If that were the case, I guess I would be at MY limit lol. I wonder if a good test would be to stand outside of the car with the doors open and using the MS8's remote to turn up the volume. Do you think this would be accurate to take my ears out of the equation, standing 5-10' away from the car?
This is one reason for some of your "sensation" - the human ear does exhibit a sort of "compression" at high SPL. It's one of the body's natural responses to protect ourselves.
You could try listening at greater distance, but there may be a recovery time also, just like your eyes have to adjust when adapting from dark to light (or vice versa) - you might not be able to discern the difference while getting from the vehicle to a distance outside (and back again).
Or, you could just try a little restraint. Lord knows, we want to test the limits of our system capability - I'm as guilty as any. I have to caution myself to leave the volume at reasonable levels, and enjoy the full range within limits of "healthy" listening.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
I can try it. I level matched everything pretty well beforehand so hopefully it has plenty of headroom. I also have access to the line driver from the driver's seat. I could always turn the MS8 down and line driver up to make up the difference.
'84 GN 10.60@ 127mph. Infinity 3.5 coaxials and a cheap Sony HU.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
Buick,
Is it the entire bandwidth that sounds like it's crapping out at high volume, or a more particular area? I'm gonna guess it's the 402's running out of steam. Those little 3.5" mids are down in the kicks fighting against the underside of the dash, the console, & your legs. My Founteks are on-axis in the pillars & are the first speakers to show signs of strain... even in a near-field setup.
Re: Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
Quote:
Originally Posted by fish
Buick,
Is it the entire bandwidth that sounds like it's crapping out at high volume, or a more particular area? I'm gonna guess it's the 402's running out of steam. Those little 3.5" mids are down in the kicks fighting against the underside of the dash, the console, & your legs. My Founteks are on-axis in the pillars & are the first speakers to show signs of strain... even in a near-field setup.
I think it's the whole bandwidth, even the subs which are seriously under worked. The 430s do a great job, I've run them this hard at 200hz and never had an issue. I'm running them highpassed at 320hz now. Almost no visible excursion and I don't have enough power available to hit their long term thermal limit. There are no audible signs of distress, vocals are always crisp and clear. This is why I'm leaning toward my own ears or possibly the factory HU. I've seen the electrical FR vs volume of the stock system and it lowers bass and treble as the volume is increased. I have it set up right now where you would rarely have to turn it up past #10 out of 40. Somewhere around halfway on the volume is where the compression starts. I'm just not sure if this "processing" is done in the HU or the factory amp that I took out. It would make more sense that it's in the HU. I can always turn the line driver up even more so that the volume never has to go above 1/4 of the way but I would be worried that someone would get in the car and fry something by turning it all the way up as a few dumbasses have done.
Actually, now that I think about it, why not just lower the line driver way down and see if it's still compressed sounding above half volume. That should tell me if it's in the HU or not.
'84 GN 10.60@ 127mph. Infinity 3.5 coaxials and a cheap Sony HU.
Loss of dynamics at high volume, do I need more power?
I wish I had 500 MINIMUM and 800-1k max for them but I just want one 
Linear Mode
