Power and loudness

[johnmatt 10+ year member]

So Im running a 12" fi audio ssd and Im in the process of upgrading my amp alpine mrd-500 to a soundstream tarantula. My current amp is driving the sub with 500 watts (the subs RMS is 800, which is why im upgrading. The new amp will give the sub 1100 watts RMS... I know its a little much for it but I wanted the amp so that I could add another 12" and drop them down to one ohm giving them 1500 RMS.

ANYWAYS, my question is how much louder is the sub going to get... is it directly proportional to the amount of power, like double the power double the loudness?

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[Ed Lester 10+ year member]

no way to really tell how much louder it will be if it will even be louder at all.

Theoretically a doubling of power can yield a 3 dB increase. But other factors are involved in reality. Like voltage drop from your electrical system, and power compression, and box rise.

So in most cases you may see a 1-2 dB increase in a setup such as yours. Could be more though.

Also, it is said that the human ear can only detect differences of 2-3 dB or more