How much power do you really NEED ?

[Lakota 5,000+ posts]

When they fire into say a trunk they load off the trunk, and the air inside the trunk is pressurized just like the air inside the box is.
That gives a sort of air spring to the cone just like the inside of the box does. Its alot harder to hear the distortion when both sides of the cone are loading off of something. Thats why bandpasses can be dangerous for some people since they mask alot of the distortion and you can blow a sub before you even know it was being stressed. Both sides of the sub are being loaded in an enclosure and that makes the distortion very hard to hear.... Subs start popping before you know what happened.

The shape of a wave doesn't stress a sub, it's just a signal.

 

[dragnix 5,000+ posts]

old school! I installed a soundstream Rubicon 500 watt mono block on 2 brutus 10" square subs ported. the guy says he has to turn it down its so loud, and his girlfriend makes him cut them off before she will get in the car. It just as loud as a Fi BL 12" on 1200 watts.

the rubicon is not a monoblock //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

But i'm getting that for my mids, should be good. Only problem is to find the ref700 or the rub1002. Hope I can find it for my setup //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

Edit: I guess they do have a rubicon monoblock //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[PaulD 10+ year member]

people generally buy lots of because it's cheap these days. When I started competing (back in the stone ages), you really couldn't find amps much over 100 real watts per channel - most were 50-60. So the speakers were more efficient to accomodate this. They also had a group of competitors who took the challenge to do the most with the least, the lowest category was 1-50 watts (total system power). They ran ALL passive systems and they often used cheater amps - an amp rated at say 25 watts/ch that could really do 200 WPC or more if loaded down.

If you are going to compete in SQ, you will want a good bit of power for headroom. If this is for daily personal listening, you may not NEED more than a 50X4 and maybe 300-400 for a sub.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

For the personal listening of a normal person, 200-300 watts total is more than enough. You get your biggest gains in output at the lower wattages anyway. Remember that the difference between 1 watt and 10 watts is 10 dB. On mids and highs, that's usually enough to get you over 100dB which is plenty loud. You'd want a little more power on the sub because of decreased efficiency. The other nice thing about a low powered system is that power compression is minimal because of the low power levels. The difference between 1 and 10 watts usually actually IS 10dB where the difference between 100 and 1000w, which should theoretically be 10dB is almost always something a good bit less than that.

 

[James Bang 5,000+ posts]

It's all about efficiency. Someone can brag about how many he has or loud he can get all he want. I'd rather get just as loud with half the power or less.

I was thinking more along the lines of 50x4 and like 300w for a pair of 12's IB

^^my setup is somewhat similar. Just a few more wattage for mids and lows.

 

[DBDRAGGUY 10+ year member]

1200-1500 watts total, for a daily system. I am currently running less than 600 on my daily system and it seems to be lacking a little in sub output. 1 set of 6.5 components and a 12" sub sealed.

 

[slam 5,000+ posts]

back in the day(early 90's) i only had 500 watts and still hit a 148 on music sealed up. since more ppl are going with woofers that need more power, ur gonna need more power period

 

[Bun-Bun 10+ year member]

Personally 75x4 RMS is a bare minium for me but on high end components I dont like anything less then 130-150wrms. Not so much to get loud but the control and clarity you get from it. for example MLK165's sound like crap out 75wrms but sound amazing on 150wrms.

Sub wise... I dunno I have only ever had my current set up and I like it. 1100wrms into 4 10's. Not stupid loud but moves enough air to shake you... just like I like it. But I could see for a lot of people 300-600wrms into a 12 or pair of 12's being plenty of power.

 

[PaulD 10+ year member]

actually, subs are more efficient than mids or tweets - what's inefficient at low freq's is our ears. A quick look at a fletcher-munson loudness curve will reveal this quite nicely.

 

[JRock10 10+ year member]

my gf has my Viper 450.5 with Fanatic X Comps in the front Kicker comps in the very back (brings the stage up a bit, the comps are coax style in the bottom of the doors. rears are very faded) and a Punch HE2 10 in a camaro probox. she loves it. it's nice for me too when I drive the car. it's more than plenty

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

actually, subs are more efficient than mids or tweets - what's inefficient at low freq's is our ears. A quick look at a fletcher-munson loudness curve will reveal this quite nicely.

Per the T/S formula for efficiency, subs are less efficient because of the lower Fs. Couple that with the low freq attenuation of human hearing and it's a double whammy.

 

[denim 5,000+ posts]

My daily driver is running a whopping 300ish watts. Sounds very good and is plenty loud.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

since more ppl are going with woofers that need more power, ur gonna need more power period

How does the fact that many people use inefficient subs mean that you need more power? Totally flawed logic. If you don't use an inefficient sub, or don't need/want a lot of output, there's no reason to use a lot of power. I've used an inefficient sub with around 400w going to it an was more than satisfied with the output. I've also used fairly efficient subs with about 130W going to each and it was obnoxious. I've used as little as 25w per side and as much as 100w per side for the front speakers and again had more than enough output for it to be painful with either setup.

 

[SHOemup233 10+ year member]

I loved my current setup. I was going to get front components with 150 to each side - so for me 1300-1700 watts would be ideal.

I say liked - because I am selling my car and all of my caraudio stuff in a week. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crying.gif.ec0ebefe590df0251476573bc49e46d8.gif:crying:. College starting = broke. Enter the real world of no money!

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

5000 million gazillion jiggawatts