Sassmaster

I'm curious about how much power people here think they need for speakers and subs. I've made my decisions already, but I'm curious as to how much power do you guys think you need?

personally, a front stage should be at least 400 RMS. or 200 RMS/side. personally, I'm going to be running 600 RMS to my components, 150 per woofer, 150 per tweeter.

subbass doesn't really require that much power to sound good in a car... to sound good from 6 blocks needs a little more, but you're also asking to have your very expensive, very powerful amps stolen by anyone with a screwdriver and a hammer.


subbass power, I'm going to go with a minimum of 100 RMS per sub. I ran my 12" DLS off of a kicker KX75.2 bridged, and it got loud enough for music listening. The maximum that you actually need for subbass is I'd say around 500 RMS/sub. there isn't a sub built for listening that won't play well with 1200 RMS. some monster subs, like the soloX and MTX jackhammer won't really play with that little, but they're not really meant to listen to, just to get loud, and if you can aford the sub, you can afford the amps to make it rumble.

so...

front stage: min 200 RMS/side max, whatever you want.
sub: min 100 RMS/sub, max 1200 RMS/sub

SLVROZ_03

iTrader: (10)

...enough so that I can lose the rest of my hearing. Damn I need hearing aids...

bene

well if you plan on running a 400 RMS amp to components you must wire the tweeters and woofers seperately or lose all your bass because when you turn it up it will blow them from too much power

im running a 400 RMS 1250 rated max amp to my speakers and i haveta turn the bass off to the speakers when i go above 1/3 power ... 400 rms amp just means you want to have enough power to blow your ears out, you dont need a amp that big

sub amp, depending on weither u just want bass or you want it to hit

100 RMS is too low unless you just want not much bass at all, 300 RMS @ 4 ohms per channel is about right to make 2 12's satifactory but not booming
normally try to aim at alteast half the subs RMS for your amp any lower and its just gonna sit there and be quiet... amp quality makes a difference too

Psythik

When it comes to power, I usually give the subs the same amount of RMS power as the total of the rest of the speakers. For example, if I am going to give 125w RMS to each speaker (assuming I have four), then I will dedicate 500w to the subwoofers (125w*4 for speakers = 500w*1 for subs.) I have found if you give more power to bass than the rest of the speakers, the subwoofers drown out the rest of the speakers, and vice-versa for giving too much power to the speakers.

Never Satisfied

For sound quality, and comfort of listening... about 60w RMS to each of the 4 cabin speakers is more than enough. About 250w RMS to a single sub in the trunk would blend nicely and fill in the low end.

400w RMS to just 2 front speakers would be extreme overkill, because you will never be able to turn it up loud enough to make use of it without severely damaging your hearing... probably loud enough to be painful if you went anywhere near the upper 1/3 of that much power.

mrblob20

Not accurate. It takes more power to move a sub. Also, your sub is in the trunk while tweeters can be right by your head. On top of THIS! your only sending about 60-100 HZ frequencies to it, while your speakers play a full sprectrum.

If you run 100 Wrms to each speaker, you should run DOUBLE the power at the back. However, stick to MAX 600WRMS in the back with a class d amp if you keeping your STOCK alternator ---no more.

BTW to get MORE sound...try putting your seats down, your subs sound 10x better.

Sassmaster

The reason I use so much power is for reserve.... most people do not realize how much they lose when they use too little power on their speakers. an amp that will produce 300 watts on a peak will give you a extra 6 dB on peak musical passages as compared to an amp that will produce 75 watts on a peak. 100 RMS gives you LOTS of room to get those musical passages to sound phenominal.

also, the more power you have, the lower your gain can be, so the lower your noise floor will be as well.

Never Satisfied

Not exactly... running your gains at the correct matching point for all of your componets will give you the best result. By running your gains too high or too low, you can actually kill your signal to noise ratio.

Or, so all of my training to date has told me anyways.

But, as I stated, matching is where it's at. So, you may use speakers that take more power than others. Most speakers that I deal with on a daily basis at work are between 45-90 RMS.

Sassmaster

my tweeters run 60 RMS full range, and my mids run 100 RMS... matching is fine if you want a safe, average sounding car. but I compete for sound quality, I'll be running 600 RMS to my front stage.

BillAce

iTrader: (2)

I normally used Zapco 6.0's for DLS front stages, especially if I was using their passive xovers. THe power level wasn't as much of a factor as control. Most amp specs are based at 1KHz with a test tone and real world performance is not anywhere near the printed specs. Assuring signal quality is easy with an amp like the 6.0, especially when you need 50% of its capability. The other factor is that at a moment in time the recording engineer may have increased a frequency when mastering by 6db, your tuning may also increase that note by 6db. You will then need 4x the power to deliver that note. Its good to have it available.

Subs, though sups are normally less efficient, more mass to get moving, they move more air and provide more output than other drivers. If I had to make a claim I would say that I would match the power to the sub. However; enclosure type, IB, AP, or the vehicle type, and system requirements change this requirement all the time. I ran a 9.0 on my (2) IDMAX 12 freeair in my Legend to get my 132db but used 25% of the output during SQ judging.