I'm sure those speakers will work fairly well with your HU putting out 55W. I looked briefly at a website for "Vibe Slick 6X9 speakers" and I didn't see any MIN wattage, just recommended wattage.
John Kuthe...
- Thread Starter
- #5
The radio itself is 4 x 55w so it should be 55w per channel. I'm just wondering if it is sufficient to power the 70w rms speakers?
ignore the min wattage rating, your Head unit would be able to drive to a certain level, but an external amp would be best.
What Pioneer head unit do you have that has 55 watts RMS ?
What Pioneer head unit do you have that has 55 watts RMS ?
Jeffdachef
5,000+ posts
Gunz That Turn on Nunz
no thats fake peak wattage numbers. NO head unit on the market makes more than 10-15 watts RMS per channel unless its the sony mex100bt. You have A LOT less power than you were led to believe bud. They only put that number to trick noobs into buying products. Its absolutely irrelevant. Real world tests only gets you 10-15 watts with almost all aftermarket stereos, even the ones that claim 22 watts rms per channel. They all use the same manufactured internal amplifier board from china, you arent gonna get anything different. BTW Stock stereos are only 3-5 watts. I know this flips your world upside down but its the harsh truth of the car audio world. It doesnt take that much watts to get to a certain level of loudness. However it can get tapped out and you will hear distortion when you force the internal amp to work over its capacity which leads to distorted sounding speakers. Hence thats why everyone on here is suggesting an amplifier to prevent that from happening.
Portion of said article...
The power difference
A lot of aftermarket receivers claim high power output. Go to any store and you'll see "50 watts x 4," or more, printed on the face of most models. That's plenty, right? After all, you'll find there are a lot of amps that list 50 watts x 4 as their output. Just be careful that you're not comparing apples to oranges, though.
The 50 x 4 wattage rating on your head unit is a "peak power" rating. The problem is peak power ratings aren't a realistic way to measure performance. They are only a reflection of wattage output for very short "bursts" of music — like a single loud note. RMS wattage ratings — a measure of the continuous power output of your equipment — are a much more realistic way to evaluate performance.
A head unit with a 50 watt x 4 peak power rating probably produces about 20-25 watts of continuous, or RMS power. If you compare that to an amp with an RMS wattage rating of 50 x 4, you're looking at double the power. That's enough power to make a real difference in performance.
The power difference
A lot of aftermarket receivers claim high power output. Go to any store and you'll see "50 watts x 4," or more, printed on the face of most models. That's plenty, right? After all, you'll find there are a lot of amps that list 50 watts x 4 as their output. Just be careful that you're not comparing apples to oranges, though.
The 50 x 4 wattage rating on your head unit is a "peak power" rating. The problem is peak power ratings aren't a realistic way to measure performance. They are only a reflection of wattage output for very short "bursts" of music — like a single loud note. RMS wattage ratings — a measure of the continuous power output of your equipment — are a much more realistic way to evaluate performance.
A head unit with a 50 watt x 4 peak power rating probably produces about 20-25 watts of continuous, or RMS power. If you compare that to an amp with an RMS wattage rating of 50 x 4, you're looking at double the power. That's enough power to make a real difference in performance.
Aha! Thanks!
I think a "min wattage" spec is BS. What's it gonna do, just not work at all with less than the speced minimum wattage? NO! Maybe it won't work optimally but it should still work.
John Kuthe...
So this is technically along the lines of OP, when subs say rms do they mean a clamped number rms or literally throw a 1200w rms amp on the sub
Double the wattage only results in about a 3DB rise in sound pressure level which while significant is not terribly impressive most times. . Ten times the watts makes twice the SPL or loudness. It's a logarithmic relationship.
John Kuthe...
RMS or Root Mean Square is the standard way of specifying the power/intensity of an AC sine wave signal. Since summing all the waves would result in a zero value, their intensity must be squared to get rid of the negative portions of the sine wave signal waveform, then the root/mean part kind of gives a meaningful standard to the intensity of the A/C waveform, or more correctly the "average" or RMS amplitude.
John Kuthe...
Novices will have no clue what clamped power means. Best thing to do is to match amp rms with sub rms, assuming using quality equipment that's not overrated. Many here calculate in parasitic loss and box rise, running many more watts than the subs are rated at. Experience is key and giving out willy nilly info can lead to damaged equipment for beginners.
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