JTF vegas your correct. I'm not 20 anymore and i have had a nice sounding system in my vehicles for years and i can agree that i have had some loss of hearing. When my friends or family or coworkers talk to me and i have to say, what you say, and they not standing to far away, there is something wrong. That is why i have thought about adding a more power to my system but i have to stop myself and say, it is loud already. When you pull into the work place parking lot and your coworkers say, i can here you coming, for me I think it is loud enough. For me it is mostly about SQ these days.I remember a car enthusiant talking about headroom 20 years ago. He stated, "The more headroom the better!". He is now 70% deaf in both ears!!
Just something to remember. Please be mindful of your hearing, once its gone, its gone!
Yes hearing loss is permanent! No SQ or SPL installation is worth your hearing.JTF vegas your correct. I'm not 20 anymore and i have had a nice sounding system in my vehicles for years and i can agree that i have had some loss of hearing. When my friends or family or coworkers talk to me and i have to say, what you say, and they not standing to far away, there is something wrong. That is why i have thought about adding a more power to my system but i have to stop myself and say, it is loud already. When you pull into the work place parking lot and your coworkers say, i can here you coming, for me I think it is loud enough. For me it is mostly about SQ these days.
good comment JTF Vegas
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but midrange speakers and tweeters will have much less rise than a subwoofer unless the midrange is in an enclosure. It's almost negligible with a midrange speaker (<10%).
I was thinking that in my mine also. Being that low frequencies require more power to produce the waves. You would think that the high powered amp for subs and the rise we have been discussing would be less on say a tweeter or a midrange speaker amp.Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but midrange speakers and tweeters will have much less rise than a subwoofer unless the midrange is in an enclosure. It's almost negligible with a midrange speaker (<10%).
WOW n2audio that name Richart Clark sound familiar. I can remember back in 90's when i worked at the GM car dealership here in So Cal and a few of us service technicians that were into car audio used to read Car Audio Magazine. What i remember was this guy who was a expert car audio person and sound tech guy and had articles or where written about him articles on system setups from amps specs to speakers and speaker placement and so on. I think he was affiliated with or worked out of a shop called Speaker Works in Orange California. To this day the one thing that stands out in my mind was this guy said in an article that, if you had to install an equalizer unit in your car to adjust the sound for sound shaping or volume your system was not set up correct and the amp power and speaker placement was not right. On the amps I think he was refering to amps also not having enough power to the speakers. That now i understand what he means and what we have been disusing. At the time i think it was a Buick Regal car he was showing. We all remember the EQ units many used to install in the cars back then for more volume and sound. This guy had no equalization in the car and it rocked. I wonder if this is the same guy? wow dating myself.~10+ yrs ago when Richard Clark and David Navone moderated at the carsound tech forums there were endless amounts of information/debates between engineers and this was always a popular topic. JL had a rep there a lot. JBL had a rep there a lot -- among others.
He would often reference his experience testing speakers in the lab. They had a giant commercial amp on a cart they wheeled around for all these tests. Its power output was insane. Like 10kw x 2 or something like that. He said they commonly used it to test 50w coaxials. They never damaged a speaker unless they made a mistake on the power handling test.
IMO having an amp that matches the speaker's RMS rating is the bare minimum if optimal speaker performance is the goal. Generally, I think 150-200% is the sweet spot.
RMS ratings are supposed to be what the speaker can handle continuously for an indefinite amount of time. Music is nowhere near that type of signal, as you clearly understand. You would need to exceed the rms rating for several seconds, if not minutes for it to even be a concern. So unless your plan is blast 0dB sine waves all the time there's not much point in concerning yourself with power ratings unless you're doing something completely ridiculous.
Update On Richard Clark. Did a Google search and yes same guy. That guy was great. Just have not heard that name in very long time.~10+ yrs ago when Richard Clark and David Navone moderated at the carsound tech forums there were endless amounts of information/debates between engineers and this was always a popular topic. JL had a rep there a lot. JBL had a rep there a lot -- among others.
He would often reference his experience testing speakers in the lab. They had a giant commercial amp on a cart they wheeled around for all these tests. Its power output was insane. Like 10kw x 2 or something like that. He said they commonly used it to test 50w coaxials. They never damaged a speaker unless they made a mistake on the power handling test.
IMO having an amp that matches the speaker's RMS rating is the bare minimum if optimal speaker performance is the goal. Generally, I think 150-200% is the sweet spot.
RMS ratings are supposed to be what the speaker can handle continuously for an indefinite amount of time. Music is nowhere near that type of signal, as you clearly understand. You would need to exceed the rms rating for several seconds, if not minutes for it to even be a concern. So unless your plan is blast 0dB sine waves all the time there's not much point in concerning yourself with power ratings unless you're doing something completely ridiculous.