The Power Difference Between Sine Waves, and Musical Bass

bigbassman
Premium Member

Master of all things loud
As we march towards the 12" test session, I recall many a person questioning why testing was stopped on _________ woofer during the 8 challenge with only 100-200 watts because they know a guy that has a 500-1000 watt amp on his and its fine type deals..

First off.... there's a HUGE difference between having a certain power amp on a speaker, and having a certain amount of power on a speaker.. and testing I did tonight will hopefully shed some light on this..

First the details... I used a static 3.4 ohm DCR coil for testing..

the coil has a 1.5" od width, with a 2 layer winding of round copper. length is .43"

the coil was borrowed from a Q power 12.. for the record //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

power was provided via the subwoofer amp of my computer system, and a true RMS clamp and dmm were used for data collection..

for the sine wave, I used a 0db pure wave @ 60hz

for music, I chose 1 rock, and 1 rap song at random.. they ended up being AC/DC Shook me all night long, and Lil Jon Snap Your Fingers, both recorded at the standard reference level

In short.. all 3 tracks were played at the same volume level

volume level was maintained for all 3 tracks.. nothing changed but track, to best simulate a person switching between them in car

temperature was measured via probe, at 5 second intervals. Average power was also sampled at 5 second intervals, and averaged.. the graph reflects a 30 second period of time

coiltempgraph.jpg


peak wattage for the sine wave was 10 watts

peak wattage for Lil Jon was 12.5 watts

peak wattage for AC/DC was 11.5 watts

hopefully this small test will help people visualize why the frequency response testing we do, is stopped for good reason..

on a side note... I hit the coil with 60hz, 85 watts of power, and took the coil to the brink of failure.. 515 degrees F was that limit.. the coil was also stable @ 350 degrees for 10 minutes.. these numbers appear to fall in line with typical coil designs of the present day...

thanks for looking!

Loyd L.

 
//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/offtopic.gif.470a8b0541c72322a0037f48a8237473.gif hey lloyd have you tested any trunk cars,if so whats the loudest way to place subs/ports in them?

thanks alot

 
//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/offtopic.gif.470a8b0541c72322a0037f48a8237473.gif hey lloyd have you tested any trunk cars,if so whats the loudest way to place subs/ports in them?
thanks alot
not enough to give any useful information... serious spl competitors generally steer away from a trunk.. lol

there's a couple notable exceptions.. and they fire forward..

Loyd L.

 
Loyd FTW.

This is a great piece of info for people here... great job.

Oh, and congrats again to the new addition //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 
Very nice, informative thread Lloyd //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Would be interesting, if you get a spare coil sometime ( //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif ), to measure the impedance of the speaker at the varying temperatures with the sine wave aswell //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Just to show people what happens to the coil, impedance wise, based simply on heat alone.

 
Very nice, informative thread Lloyd //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif
Would be interesting, if you get a spare coil sometime ( //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif ), to measure the impedance of the speaker at the varying temperatures with the sine wave aswell //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif Just to show people what happens to the coil, impedance wise, based simply on heat alone.
easy enough to do..

I will point out that during the 30 second timed run I graphed.. impedence was unchanged... but 150 F is a low temperature too..

I'll run the coil some more tonight and post it up //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Loyd L.

 
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bigbassman

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