[matyj]

Focal Utopia Be active power handling

hiya, just a really quick q i hope someone can shed some light on. Ive been searching around for a while and its frikin hard to find a definitive answer on this! i have a pair of utopia 3w2, 6w2 and tbe tweeter. Im going to run these active of alpine f amps, either 2 f4's or an f4 and f6, then bridge the remaining 2 f6 channels to feed a 21wx 300wrms or the f4 and feed it 200wrms. What I want to know is, can i feed all speakers (minus the sub) 100wrms each, safely? and on top of that if i feed the 3w2 and tweet 100wrms should I feed the 6w2 150wrms since its quite a bit larger? (all safely!) and what affect will this 100 x 100 x 150 have on over all sq and blending between each speaker, vs say the 100 x 100 x 100 considering they're 3 very different speakers. Thanks!

 

[matyj]

hiya, just a really quick q i hope someone can shed some light on. Ive been searching around for a while and its frikin hard to find a definitive answer on this! i have a pair of utopia 3w2, 6w2 and tbe tweeter. Im going to run these active of alpine f amps, either 2 f4's or an f4 and f6, then bridge the remaining 2 f6 channels to feed a 21wx 300wrms or the f4 and feed it 200wrms. What I want to know is, can i feed all speakers (minus the sub) 100wrms each, safely? and on top of that if i feed the 3w2 and tweet 100wrms should I feed the 6w2 150wrms since its quite a bit larger? (all safely!) and what affect will this 100 x 100 x 150 have on over all sq and blending between each speaker, vs say the 100 x 100 x 100 considering they're 3 very different speakers. Thanks!

 

[kyheng]

Re: Focal Utopia Be active power handling

Actually mid and tweeter you no need to have much power to them....
Only midbass and sub you need some extra...

 

[brianhj]

Why did you post this in two forums?

 

[matyj]

i felt like i posted this in the wrong spot originally! seemed more of a technical than a general question

 

[matyj]

Re: Focal Utopia Be active power handling

sorry, the question is not how much power do they need, but more so, I was asking can these specific speakers, the focal utopia be 3w2, 6w2, and tbe tweeter handle this wrms, and will it affect the sound stage if all 3 are powered 100wrms, or if i power the midbass 150wrms and the other 2 100wrms

 

[matyj]

Re: Focal Utopia Be active power handling

these tweeters can manage 200wrms filtered, but 15w unfiltered, im sure this means running through a cross point or full pass, but who would run tweeters on full pass! and the 3w2 is rated at 50wrms, 100peak but that never tells you much about a speakers true performance. I was wondering if anyone has a pair or a friend of a friend who has an active setup, or who has heard an active setup!

 

[Spyke]

hiya, just a really quick q i hope someone can shed some light on. Ive been searching around for a while and its frikin hard to find a definitive answer on this! i have a pair of utopia 3w2, 6w2 and tbe tweeter. Im going to run these active of alpine f amps, either 2 f4's or an f4 and f6, then bridge the remaining 2 f6 channels to feed a 21wx 300wrms or the f4 and feed it 200wrms. What I want to know is, can i feed all speakers (minus the sub) 100wrms each, safely? and on top of that if i feed the 3w2 and tweet 100wrms should I feed the 6w2 150wrms since its quite a bit larger? (all safely!) and what affect will this 100 x 100 x 150 have on over all sq and blending between each speaker, vs say the 100 x 100 x 100 considering they're 3 very different speakers. Thanks!

The difference between 100x100x100 and 100x100x150 is minimal. The extra 50 watts isn't gonna make a huge difference. I have a 2 way active and feed 50w to the tweeters and 50w to the mids. My tweeters are rated at 8wrms so don't worry about it. The 100w that you send to your tweeters will likely only be 10-20w after the crossover is applied.

 

[Wesayso]

I think you would be safe as long as you don't play it all at full power.
100 watt on tweeters is a bit much. I wouldn't sit in a car blasting that full power. But if you can adjust each channel you won't have the full power on there anyway.
I have a 2x 50 watt amplifier on my tweeters, gain at zero and it's output is dialed down on my head unit. I have ~ 90 watt on my woofers (2 way) and the gain is up a little and full power on the head unit. But at my listening levels it still doesn't get the full power from the amp. My sub is hooked up to 290 watt RMS and the gain on that is even a bit higher than on the woofers. But it still isn't blasting full power. It can get louder than I care to listen to.

If you have no less than 100 watt a channel fot tweeters/mids feed those 6w2 with 150 watt. With their sensitivity of 91.5 dB they should be able to get pretty loud without using it all. The 4.5mm xmax will be it's limiting factor how low it will play.

 

[kyheng]

Re: Focal Utopia Be active power handling

Well, there's more you need to learn.... Typically what is 1W/1M, FS.....

 

[matyj]

Re: Focal Utopia Be active power handling

you talking about resonant frequency? I really just want someone to tell me if it'll up the distortion on the mid (the 3w2) being fed 100wrms, on paper it looks a little over kill but in reality, ive read one review of a fellow with 100 x 100 x 150 but he hasnt installed yet. I mean realistically the rms rating is summing up how well it can handle heat from this continuous power. these wont be hammered, purely sq not spl

 

[matyj]

thanks guys! these are some of the best replies ive had and could have found! im running them off a pioneer p99rs so i can set crossovers and eq for each speaker independently, they'll never be playing loud, purely for my sq listening pleasure, i think im gonna go 100, 100, 100, ive heard the alpine f4's even though they say 100wrms in reality put out about 121wrms per channel!

 

[kyheng]

Re: Focal Utopia Be active power handling

I only feeding my 3-way front stage with a 22W*6 amp and it is pretty loud...
As said, understand what is 1W/1M first.... Don't just follow blindly what others do....
I can always feed a tweeter with a 150W amp with the gain on minimum and on HU's setting, level also at minimum....

 

[Wesayso]

That HU can dial down the seperate channels so no worries!

 

[Wesayso]

After seeing the other (similar) thread I would like to add one more thing. Please get yourself some capacitors to protect your tweeters. Put it in series with the + wire to your tweeter to protect it from mistakes or unexpected pops.

See http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/technical-advanced-car-audio-discussion/139375-ps8-popping-cold-weather-potential-blown-speakers-3.html#post1756672 for an example.
You wouldn't want to blow a tweeter like that!

I have about a 33 uf capacitor in my setup with my 4 ohm tweeter that has an fs of 825 Hz. I see the tbe tweeter is 8 ohm (but very sensitive, nice!) with a fs of nearly 1300 Hz (ok for a 3 way).
So in order for a capacitor to protect it you'd need something like a 12 uf capacitor for a first order at ~ 1600 Hz.
Some say to keep it an octave above FS but also an octave below your intended crossover frequency. You decide... but get one to protect your investment. What was your intended crossover frequency? And with what slope?

 

[matyj]

thanks for that info! im going to go 100 x 100 x 100, aaaand crossover settings, 21wx, no low pass to 100 (120), 12db, 6w2, 100 to 850 (perhaps a little lower), 24db, 3w2, 850 to 3.5, 12db, tbe 3.5 and let it roll off

 

[Wesayso]

In that case, a protection cap at around 1600 Hz does not sound bad (no pun intended).
You wouldn't want to mess up the slope with a protection cap, at more than 15 db down it'll be ok IMHO.