Question regaurding amps vs subs

[GalitanNRG 10+ year member]

Hypothetically, if I had two 100 watt rms subwoofers, would i want a 100 watt or 200 watt rms amp?

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[ciaonzo 5,000+ posts]

200

 

[hatedonmostly 5,000+ posts]

200, if you know what you're doing and watch the gains.

You're going to be pushing a 100 watt amp to it's limit by making it put out 100 watts, and is more likely to cause distortion.

The 200 watt amp will do it with half the effort, and is much less likely to distort, unless you don't know what you are doing.

 

[GalitanNRG 10+ year member]

Ok, thanks guys, its a simple question but it has been bothering me for quite some time (my researching was turning up dry).

 

[ciaonzo 5,000+ posts]

Ideally, you want anywhere from two to four times the RMS power your driver is rated for since music is sometimes highly dynamic. This way the dynamics don't suffer. If you have a driver that is rated for 100W RMS and you put an amplifier to it that provides 100W RMS, it may or may not have the ability to provide clean amounts of headroom. If you put an amplifier on it that is capable of providing 200W RMS to your 100W RMS driver, you know the dynamic power will be clean. Obviously, you would set the gains accordingly. Extra power will usually provide sharper transients and a warmer presentation but it can also damage the driver so it takes a careful installer/user to yield the correct result.

Think of yourself holding a champagne flute not by the stem, but by the fragile upper portion. If you wanted to, you could probably very easily provide enough squeezing force to crush the thin crystal in your hand but you know how hard to hold it so you don't. (Sorry that was the best I could come up with at the moment.)

The RMS rating for a driver is usually the safe thermal limit for the coil at a continuous rate with a tone or noise but music is not like that most of the time. Most drivers that are of acceptable quality can easily absorb twice the RMS rating or more for transient peaks.

For your two 100W drivers you might want to get a 400W amplifier but 200W will suffice.