Reference power amp?

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King_Cobra

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I was informed, "the more power (watts) of the amplifier, the more headroom each monitor will provide. Anything below the suggested mount of power will blow the woofers". Is this statement true or false?

If true, what happens if you have too much power? For example: If the suggested watts per channel are between 5 and 30. Would a 50 or 100 watt per channel amp be better? :confused:
 
King_Cobra said:
I was informed, "the more power (watts) of the amplifier, the more headroom each monitor will provide. Anything below the suggested mount of power will blow the woofers". Is this statement true or false?
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As with all such sweeping bromides, the answer is a qualified 'yes'. It is true that if you attempt to run underpowered speakers for long periods of time they will 'blow' or in technical terms 'sustain damage'.

And no, you can't pump a kajillion watts into computer speakers and expect them to do anything but smoke. Same is true for 100 watt amp driving 30 watt speakers. When making a purchase try to get both the amp and the speakers to match as closely as possible. 30 watt speakers can only get so loud, and overpowering them is not going to make them louder. A higher quality amp will deliver much better results than a lower quality amp as far as headroom, frequency response, lack of transient smearing, etc. On the flip side, 1000 watts of low quality power will not do anything for your monitoring system except cause problems.


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ssscientist said:
As with all such sweeping bromides, the answer is a qualified 'yes'. It is true that if you attempt to run underpowered speakers for long periods of time they will 'blow' or in technical terms 'sustain damage'.

And no, you can't pump a kajillion watts into computer speakers and expect them to do anything but smoke. Same is true for 100 watt amp driving 30 watt speakers. When making a purchase try to get both the amp and the speakers to match as closely as possible. 30 watt speakers can only get so loud, and overpowering them is not going to make them louder. A higher quality amp will deliver much better results than a lower quality amp as far as headroom, frequency response, lack of transient smearing, etc. On the flip side, 1000 watts of low quality power will not do anything for your monitoring system except cause problems.


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Okay i've narrowed my search down to two reference amplifier. The Crown D-45 and the Stewart PA50B. Do you know which amp is better? Based on brand, etc... Both amps provide 25 watts per channel at 8 ohms.

http://www.fullcompass.com/product/297692.html
http://www.performanceaudio.com/cgi/product_view.cgi?products_id=39
 
Sorry, but there are many false and misleading statements in ssscientist's post! This MUST be addressed!!!!

As with all such sweeping bromides, the answer is a qualified 'yes'. It is true that if you attempt to run underpowered speakers for long periods of time they will 'blow' or in technical terms 'sustain damage'.
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You can run underpowered speakers forever without them "blowing" or "sustaining damage". Provided that you never clip the input of the amp. Even if you clipped the input of the amp, they MIGHT still survive. There is no "given" that they will blow just because they are underpowered, just that they are more LIKELY to blow because you are possibly clipping the input of the amp.

And no, you can't pump a kajillion watts into computer speakers and expect them to do anything but smoke.
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You can pump a gajillionkajillion POTENTIONAL watts into computer speakers and they would be fine provided that you never actually USED the full wattage. If the input level to the amp was low enough, the output potential would never be realized.

Same is true for 100 watt amp driving 30 watt speakers. When making a purchase try to get both the amp and the speakers to match as closely as possible. 30 watt speakers can only get so loud, and overpowering them is not going to make them louder.
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I probably wouldn't go over by that amount, but it wouldn't scare me to do so if I found a great deal on a 100 watt amp to drive my 30 watt speakers. The rule of thumb is to match the amps potential output by 1.5-2 times that of the speakers Peak power handling rating. THAT is what creates "headroom".

A higher quality amp will deliver much better results than a lower quality amp as far as headroom, frequency response, lack of transient smearing, etc.
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A high quality 20 watt amp trying to power 100 watt speakers lacks headroom just as much as a low quality 20 watt amp trying to power 100 watt speakers. Headroom has everything to do with the amount of power you have above what you NEED then anything to do with the relative quality of the amp. Also, almost every amp I have seen made in the last 30 years will deliver the usable frequency range for human hearing. In fact, I have used quite CHEAP ass amplifiers that deliver everything just fine. If the amp can't deliver 20hz - 20khz then something is quite wrong with the amp that needs to be fixed. Now, if you want to get into class D power amp talk and stupid stuff like that, I suppose you can defend your argument, but I don't see many people trying to use a car stereo sub amp to power studio monitors, nor have ever heard of anybody asking about doing that!

On the flip side, 1000 watts of low quality power will not do anything for your monitoring system except cause problems.
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Define "low quality power" please. Certainly, few studio monitoring systems need this much power, but again, depending upon the speaker used, it may fit PERFECTLY. I keep thinking of the old UREI monitors with the double 15" woofers and horn. Easily, they can handle 500 watts each speaker! So, I guess I am not feeling your statement here because it is sort of empty of a point.
 
King_Cobra said:
Okay i've narrowed my search down to two reference amplifier. The Crown D-45 and the Stewart PA50B. Do you know which amp is better? Based on brand, etc... Both amps provide 25 watts per channel at 8 ohms.

http://www.fullcompass.com/product/297692.html
http://www.performanceaudio.com/cgi/product_view.cgi?products_id=39
Click to expand...

25 watts per channel is perfect for a speaker that is rated for between 12-16 watts.

Again, you need between 1.5-2 times the rated power of your speakers.
 
Ford Van said:
Sorry, but there are many false and misleading statements in ssscientist's post! This MUST be addressed!!!!
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Boy, you sure set me straight.

Thanks a million.

How could I have been SO wrong?

The 20 years I've spent doing live sound and setting up home systems have been based on lies and misunderstandings.

Thanks again, Ford Van.

I feel like the scales have been lifted from my eyes.


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ssscientist said:
Boy, you sure set me straight.

Thanks a million.

How could I have been SO wrong?

The 20 years I've spent doing live sound and setting up home systems have been based on lies and misunderstandings.

Thanks again, Ford Van.

I feel like the scales have been lifted from my eyes.


.
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Not to add fuel to the fire, but FV is correct here. It's distortion that kills speakers most of the time. (ie clipping the input of a power amp). You should have more power available than the speakers are rated for......
 
ssscientist said:
Boy, you sure set me straight.

Thanks a million.

How could I have been SO wrong?

The 20 years I've spent doing live sound and setting up home systems have been based on lies and misunderstandings.

Thanks again, Ford Van.

I feel like the scales have been lifted from my eyes.


.
Click to expand...

Not sure how you have had it SO wrong for SO long. But the FACTS are that you ARE wrong, and it appears you have been so for a long time!

I have over 20 years experience doing live sound myself. I have mixed sound for many grammy winning artists in jazz/blues, as well as many major label bands as they have came through town. I have set up systems for MANY MANY MANY big named artists who have tens of millions of record sales. I MADE A LIVING doing live and studio sound.

So what!

Your info is bad. Play sarcastic all you want, but you are going to be hard pressed to find other "pro's" that will side with you on this!
 
They're a subsidiary of 71077345 corproation, aren't they?

G.
 
if you want to spend some good money, get a crown DC-75. its a great low wattage amp. they sell for like 350, i thnik the old D-75's sell on the bay for 100-200, which are also nice.

i have an Alesis RA-150, which is 75w per side, running into my NS10ms which are like 50w each i think. i leave the amp at 12:00 and use the monitor volume control on my digi002. its hard to find low wattage amps..
 
oh i see your post now.

yeah the D-45 is good i think. also, i've been going with FV's info myself here. all of my amps exceed the wattage of the speakers they pump into..

sorry SS, but you are still the man! 'specially with midi!
 
ssscientist said:
Boy, you sure set me straight.

Thanks a million.

How could I have been SO wrong?

The 20 years I've spent doing live sound and setting up home systems have been based on lies and misunderstandings.

Thanks again, Ford Van.

I feel like the scales have been lifted from my eyes.


.
Click to expand...
40 years doing it here and I have to side with Van ...... running too low power will not harm speakers unless you clip it hard ....... since clipping is high-energy .... it can easily damage the tweeter in a monitor or stereo speaker. It's much less likely that it'll damage the woofer although that is possible.
And I always like to have at least 100 watts per channel on my stereo type amps even when the speakers aren't rated for it. I will admit that you do have to have an ear for how loud the speakers will go before they're stressed and a newbie could fry a low power speaker with too much power. But I never have in some 40 years of working with this stuff.
 
I've always used Crown and have always been happy with them but I have friends that swear by Haflers and, of course, there area lot of guys that especially like them after doing some of the mods that are out there.

Just curious ...... why those speakers?
Reading the specs ...... they didn't seem to have the response I, personally, would be looking for in a monitor. They only go down to 80hz and , more important to me, they only go up to 18khz.
I know, I know ...... you can't hear that high but there's a fair amount of documentation that having speakers that reproduce high freq's affects how they reproduce the freqs you can heard and also how you ears percieve those freqs.
Also ..... the one review mentioned that he considered them his new refererence for low-fi monitors.
If they were gonna be my only monitors, I wouldn't want to go with the lo-fi thing.
So at $300, I'm curious what made you decide on these?
 
Lt. Bob said:
I've always used Crown and have always been happy with them but I have friends that swear by Haflers and, of course, there area lot of guys that especially like them after doing some of the mods that are out there.

Just curious ...... why those speakers?
Reading the specs ...... they didn't seem to have the response I, personally, would be looking for in a monitor. They only go down to 80hz and , more important to me, they only go up to 18khz.
I know, I know ...... you can't hear that high but there's a fair amount of documentation that having speakers that reproduce high freq's affects how they reproduce the freqs you can heard and also how you ears percieve those freqs.
Also ..... the one review mentioned that he considered them his new refererence for low-fi monitors.
If they were gonna be my only monitors, I wouldn't want to go with the lo-fi thing.
So at $300, I'm curious what made you decide on these?
Click to expand...

I was going to ask this same thing. For that kind of dough, I would be looking for ANYTHING else. 80hz - 18khz is a pretty lousy response for a "studio monitor", and "lo-fi" is probably not what you want!
 
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