Is this recommendation for all Drivers or just the Power hungry ones?

 

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From Crown Audio


How much power can my speakers handle?
You can determine this by looking at the speaker's data sheet. Look for the Nominal Impedance spec. Typically it will be 2, 4, 8 or 16 ohms. Next, look for the loudspeaker specification called Continuous Power Handling or Continuous Power Rating. It might be called IEC rating or Power capacity.

If you can prevent the power amp from clipping (by using a limiter), use a power amp that supplies 2 to 4 times the speakers continuous power rating per channel. This allows 3 to 6 dB of headroom for peaks in the audio signal. Speakers are built to handle those short-term peaks. If you cant keep the power amp from clipping (say, you have no limiter and the system is overdriven or goes into feedback) the amplifier power should equal the speakers continuous power rating. That way the speaker wont be damaged if the amp clips by overdriving its input. In this case there is no headroom for peaks, so youll have to drive the speaker at less than its full rated power if you want to avoid distortion.

LMFAO.

--If you don't have a limiter to prevent clipping, buy a less powerful amp so that you can clip some more!--

****ing brilliant.

 

It's better than nothing at all

Yeah the guys already know how to do this ~ buy a less powerful amp so that you can clip some more!--

BwaHaHa

 

I was viewing an old email [ CROWN CE4000 STORE DISPLAY POWER AMPLIFIER -NEW COND!!! ] and started reading stuff .

Like this>>
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UNDERSTANDING DAMPING FACTOR

Loudspeakers have a mind of their own. You send them a signal and they add their own twist to it. They
keep on vibrating after the signal has stopped, due to inertia. That's called "ringing" or "time smearing."
In other words, the speaker produces sound waves that are not part of the original signal.
Suppose the incoming signal is a "tight" kick drum with a short attack and decay in its signal envelope.
When the kick-drum signal stops, the speaker continues to vibrate. The cone bounces back and forth in its
suspension. So that nice, snappy kick drum turns into a boomy throb.
Fortunately, a power amplifier can exert control over the loudspeaker and prevent ringing. Damping is the
ability of a power amplifier to control loudspeaker motion. It's measured in Damping Factor, which is load
impedance divided by amplifier output impedance. Let's explain.
If the speaker impedance is 8 ohms, and the amplifier output impedance is 0.01 ohms, the damping factor
is 800. That's a simplication. Since the speaker impedance and amplifier output impedance vary with fre-
quency, so does the damping factor. Also, the impedance of the speaker cable affects damping. Thick
cables (with low AWG) allow more damping than thin cables with (high AWG).
The lower the amplifier's output impedance, the higher the damping factor, and the tighter the sound is. A
damping factor of 1000 or greater is considered high. High damping factor equals tight bass.
How It Works
How does an amplifier control speaker motion? When the loudspeaker cone vibrates, it acts like a micro-
phone, generating a signal from its voice coil. This signal generated by the speaker is called back EMF
(back Electro Motive Force). It travels through the speaker cable back into the amplifier output, then
returns to the speaker. Since back EMF is in opposite polarity with the speaker's motion, back EMF
impedes or damps the speaker's ringing.
The smaller the amp's output impedance, the greater is the effect of back EMF on the speaker's motion.
An amplifier with low output impedance does not impede the back EMF, so the back EMF drives the loud-
speaker with a relatively strong signal that works against the speaker's motion. When the speaker cone
moves out, the back EMF pulls the speaker in, and vice versa.
In short, the loudspeaker damps itself through the amplifier output circuitry. The lower the impedance of
that output circuitry, the more the back EMF can control the speaker's ringing.
To prove it to yourself, take a woofer that is not connected to anything. Put your ear next to the cone and
tap on it. You might hear a low-pitched "bongggg" if the speaker itself is poorly damped. Now short the
speaker terminals and tap again. You should hear a tighter thump.
Damping factor varies with frequency. As you might suspect, damping factor is most important at low fre-
quencies, say 10 Hz to 400 Hz. The chart on the next page shows typical damping factor vs. frequency of
a Crown CTs 600/1200 power amplifier. It's well over 3000 from 10 Hz to 1 kHz.
All Crown amplifiers are designed to have high damping factor. That's why you can count on Crown amps
to deliver clean, tight kick drum and bass

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BwaHaHa

 

What are some other ways to get rib of bloated, or boomy sounding lows?

 

For starters, try to achieve a smooth frequency response well into the midbass region, and play with subwoofer position in the car and phase adjustment.

 

You do realize this is talking about live sound/club rigs and not car audio, right? I understand why you guys are laughing, but it's taken out of context...

 

Pro audio, car audio, home audio....its all the same. Do not let your amps clip and you will be fine with as much power as you can give them (WITHIN REASON....some have more reasoning skills than others). :drummer:

Of course that is a overly general statement! All speakers have thermal and mechanical limits, that when surpassed, will cause failure. Fortunately, it is normally fairly easy to tell if your speakers are being pushed harder than they want to be pushed. Unfortunately (for themselves and certain service/warranty department personnel), some people have lots of uncommon sense.

 

that post makes a lot of sense.. but the biggest prob with audio is that you have people like me who start with no knowledge of freq, pathlenghts and so on.. and also no one in the area has a "good install"

so you are limited by what you can learn on the internet and forums such as this one.. nearly every one knows how to set gains from so many guides posted but setting crossovers and so on

i seen the candance 30 band eq that someone put a link up of there the other day even if that was a bargin i wud not know how to make the most of it

knowledge is everything

the uncommon sense factor is just that years ago i put in blaupunkt 8inch speakers in doorcards no baffle. hell i did not even know what a baffle was

 

Trust me, we have all been there at some point. Live and learn I guess....I grew up in a time with no internets....how on earth did I manage? I was not criticizing anyone...just pointing out my observations.

 

I'll just install this little Crown and call it a day 8110 Watts RMS x 1 channel at 4 ohms,
14.4V supply and ≤ 1%THD+N : I now have some Headroom

JBL Car & Marine Audio

 

I love Classical Music; I would never need 8100 watts at 4 0hms for a Sub.

I just thought that since you were posting articles from Crown it might be interesting to see what they built for a Car.

 

I hate the word headroom.

 

I want Headroom :laugh:

 

Hypothetical:

If 90% of the music we listen to runs out at -12 dB RMS and we have a 100w amp at our disposal, how much bigger of an amp would we need if we switched to -20 RMS music for the other 10% of the time and still wanted to keep the same SPL we're accustomed to (ie same vol level on the HU)? [all other factors held constant for this ex].

 

I don't get what you're asking.

Also, the RMS level of the signal isn't terribly important when deciding on amps. Ideally, you want an amp that won't clip (or will clip minimally). So what's really important about the signal are the peaks. -12dB and -20dB material can have the same peak levels if the -20dB one is more dynamic.

If the two signals you're describing are identical in every way, except one is a steady 8dB more than the other one, then all you need to do is set your gains to accommodate both.

 

The component set my mids are part of - not even the mids themselves, but the component set - is rated at 50w RMS.

The amp I'm powering them with does over 500w..

Am I doing it right?

 

The amp I'm powering them with does over 500w..

What an amp is rated for and what it actually does are not the same.

Oh, and make sure to have a fire extinguisher handy for when your component set becomes the key component in your carBQ.

 

I'm simply trying to get those that don't get it quite yet (some say 'n00b') to think in terms of their music tastes/habits and economy when buying amps. My examples suck i guess, so **** it........I'll let Hic ramble instead.....(u kno i <3 Hic)

 

All of this talk about "headroom" is getting a little crazy. I believe that you should have a good amount of power available for peaks. I understand that peaks can require a significant amount of power more than the rest of the song. However, most amps can already handle these peaks without a problem. That's where the rms/peak ratings come from. You don't have to be able to handle the peaks with available rms. The peaks are so short that your amp can handle it. You may say that this leads to distortion, but are you really going to hear the clipping in a peak that is less than .5 seconds long?

I think the best argument for having extra power is that your amps will run cooler and last longer is they are operating well below their rated power.

If I'm not mistaken, Chad is running a 5 channel PDX and I don't hear him bitching about "headroom"

 

All of this talk about "headroom" is getting a little crazy. I believe that you should have a good amount of power available for peaks. I understand that peaks can require a significant amount of power more than the rest of the song. However, most amps can already handle these peaks without a problem. That's where the rms/peak ratings come from. You don't have to be able to handle the peaks with available rms. The peaks are so short that your amp can handle it. You may say that this leads to distortion, but are you really going to hear the clipping in a peak that is less than .5 seconds long?

I think the best argument for having extra power is that your amps will run cooler and last longer is they are operating well below their rated power.

If I'm not mistaken, Chad is running a 5 channel PDX and I don't hear him bitching about "headroom"

Our moderator is running a JL Audio 5 channel
JL Audio 500/5

{which...by the way , can do 2 channels of rear fill that has bandpass and attenuation for a fuller sound
...in the best possible way

 

If you have fried tweeters or melted the plastic on a passive x-over set...

It ain't cause your amp is too powerful { actually saw that posted before

 

To be technical I'd guess headroom in an amp would be its ability to handle a peak above the RMS output. That is great, yet if you play a bass tone it will do nothing for you. Most amps would store this power in the rail caps and most of us know how caps work. But in typical music it would work well as music is never constant.

On the other hand newer amps have better PS and can react faster, thus rail caps are often smaller than they used to be. However if you have a huge amp then it would not need to handle a peak above the max RMS (average output) because you never get to the max RMS. Your headroom is really excess capacity. Also note that when you power test an amp unless you play bass tones as music, an amp would never see those conditions in real music listening SQ use (ok maybe a sub amp would some). So an amp might sag rails bad on a sine wave, yet perform nicely playing real music that never draws that much constant load. That said newer amps seem to have better PS that don't sag like some old amps do (that is what Gijoe means by 'an amp can already handle these peaks'), though I have not tested that many. They all seem to sag some because they just don't regulate it that well there is not much need to. Some amps they might sag on purpose because the outputs can survive max power only for short bursts...it all depends on the design.

Large amp= it never clips, its bigger and costs more
Smaller amp= cheaper, how well does it clip because you will see clipping when you push it, is smaller to mount

I'd also add that running higher ohm load, such as 4 ohms on a 4/2 ohm amp, is going to be easier on the amp than most anything else long as you don't install it in an oven. That would be a good reason to buy a larger amp. They are also more efficient that way. Amps are cheap, unless you are really poor or doing SPL there is not much need to run low ohm loads these days. But it might be fun, always was when I did it but amps used to be really expensive so you got the most out of them.

Anther thing is if you have a big amp and actually do clip it, that is a good time to see drivers smoke quickly.

 

A Zuki Eleets 4 channel amplifier is one of the best buys I have ever made for the pure joy it gives the sound when it is cranked into higher levels

Zukis Don't Back Down . . . when the going gets tough ! epper: