speaker strength

[ouch]

so i wanna get some new speakers, but a problem with buying online is that you dont get to try them out.

i want to get some LOUD speakers. some that would wake up my parents when i come home at night. but do i solely just look at the RMS power? or whats going on? :S

[menacer]

for volume, pretty much yea. but if your looking for clarity and longevity things such as cone material and magnet quality start to play a role too.

[2MPRS]

ur best bet would be to go and listen to speakers at a audio store and buy the one you like online. btw louder doesnt always mean better lol.

[NightKids]

Anything fed like 50W RMS of power is enough to be blasted at extremely uncomfortable levels.

Alpine Type Rs are pretty loud...

[mugen_ctr]

alpine type R ftw.. .but if u dont have the dough type S are just as good

[menacer]

type s is good but not as good as the type R's... theyre heaps clearer and r stable thru a wider frequency range

[NightKids]

JL Audio for clarity...

[arverson]

will you be powering these speakers off a HU or amping them?

if we're only talking about outright volume then look for ones with a 'high' sensitivity. this gives a general indication of how loud a speaker is with a given amount of power. higher than low 90's would be above average sensitivity. majority of speakers fall into the 86 - low 90s.

with everything else being equal, imagine you had 2 speakers (we'll call them A & B).
A) 100rms & a sensitivity of 85
B) 50 rms & 94
now if you fed both speakers 50 rms of power, speaker B would be considerably louder (nearly twice as loud). and if you fed only speaker A with 100 rms then it still wouldnt be as loud as speaker B with only 50rms (despite A recieving more power). its a bit more advanced than that but thats technical enough for the question..

but point is, dont focus too much on power ratings & specs. nearly everything will go loud enough fed with 20-30 rms, in fact majority of people wont use more than this on a daily basis (if you dont believe me then ask the average joe who runs speakers off their HU). pop into a store and you'll find a set to make your ears bleed or wake up your parents or make you look 'cool' down chapel/kings st, if thats your goal.

also theres much better than the alpine type-r's & s's people have suggested, but thats only my opinion...

[WarrenM]

so i wanna get some new speakers, but a problem with buying online is that you dont get to try them out.

i want to get some LOUD speakers. some that would wake up my parents when i come home at night. but do i solely just look at the RMS power? or whats going on? :S

You need to be guided by "sensitivity" or "SPL". This is the volume that the speaker puts out (at 1KHz for a full-range speaker) when driven by 1 watt of power, when you are 1 metre away. For every doubling of power, add 3dB to the volume.

So, if the speaker has a sensitivity or SPL of 92, then, at 1 Watt it will deliver 92 dB. At 2 Watts, 95 dB. At 4 Watts, 98 dB. At 32 Watts, it will deliver 107 dB. At 128 Watts it will deliver 113 dB.

Here is where power handling comes in. If the speakers have an RMS rating of 50dB and a peak rating of 100dB, you are likely to burn them out, pushing them to 128 Watts each. But if the speakers have an RMS rating of 250 Watts and a peak rating of 400 Watts, you could drive them consistently at 3dB more than 113dB without causing any problem (except with your failing high frequency hearing). You will do permanent damage to your hearing listening at this volume.

BUT, if you plan on burning out your speakers, there is a much easier way than using too much power. Simply go for an amp which can't put out enough! If you were driving these speakers with an amplifier rated at 50W RMS per channel and 100 peak per channel, attempting to drive them past the amp's absolute capacity makes it "clip", which simply put, sends direct current to your speakers, which can only use alternating current. The result is swift and catastrophic destruction of said speakers.

So the rules are:
Choose a speaker which can put out as much volume as you want it to, based on its power handling and its sensitivity
Select an amplifier which delivers at least as much power as the maximum required to get the volume you want from the speakers


None of this takes into consideration how well the speakers reproduce music (which does not seem to play any part in your selection criteria anyway). For myself, I'd actually choose a pair of speakers I actually like to listen to, and will still enjoy listening to, long after the parents have raised their eyes to the heavens and gone back inside.

[ouch]

ahh this is the first time ive heard about this sensitivity concept, confusing i must say. farout, why is life so hard?

so i got these two speakers in mind:

1.http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_14915_Boston-Acoustics-PRO60SE-Pro60-SE.html

2.http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_7755_Focal-165-A1.html

opinions boys?

[WarrenM]

ahh this is the first time ive heard about this sensitivity concept, confusing i must say. farout, why is life so hard?

so i got these two speakers in mind:

1.http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_14915_Boston-Acoustics-PRO60SE-Pro60-SE.html

2.http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_7755_Focal-165-A1.html

opinions boys?

Both manufacturers are highly regarded. The Boston splits are among their showcase products, which means they expect them to be driven by a very capable amplifier. The Focals are very efficient and are not designed to be driven by masses of power. Chances are they will be louder at 60 watts per channel than the Bostons at 120 W per channel. That is just a guess because there is no indication on the Boston Acoustics site as to the sensitivity of the PRO60SE speakers, which makes it difficult to compare. According to customer reviews, they are rather hungry and require a fairly powerful amp to drive them loud, which suggests they are fairly inefficient - maybe a sensitivity of around 85 dB - again just a guess.

Regards
Warren

[ouch]

well ive looked around and the bostons have a sensitivity of 90. does that change anything?

[WarrenM]

well ive looked around and the bostons have a sensitivity of 90. does that change anything?

Well that means that they should require a bit under double the power required by the Focals to get the same volume. If the right volume for you is achieved with 50 W RMS using the Focals, then you would need to drive the Bostons with about 85 W RMS for the same volume.

[ouch]

thats interesting stuff. so if i gave both the speakers their max power, the bostons would be louder? so. simply speaking, bostons have the potential to be much louder than the focals however, are much more inefficient.

[arverson]

get the ones you like the sound of better. nothing more, nothing less.

even tho me & warren have mentioned sensitivity, dont get to hung up on specs, rms, sensitvity & whatnot.

at the end of the day, either will go plenty loud. outright max volume means nothing if they both achieve desired loudness . think of it like this: deciding between 2 cars, car A has a top speed of 250kmh, the other 235kmh.. those figures dont matter if we dont plan to drive any faster than say 180kmh, and our usual top speed on a daily basis is 110kmh. car A having a 15kmh advantage over car B shouldnt be a factor cus either car will do fine in the top speed department.

just like either of those speakers will go really loudly off only 50ish rms. many people rarely use more than that on a daily basis, any more power is just headroom. so, dont let the deciding factor be how loud they can potentially play cus theyll both do that. no need to nitpick specs and worry if one can potentially be 3db louder if you never listen to it that loud.

hope that makes sense.

just pop into the store, LISTEN to em and decide then. its that simple.

[WarrenM]

thats interesting stuff. so if i gave both the speakers their max power, the bostons would be louder? so. simply speaking, bostons have the potential to be much louder than the focals however, are much more inefficient.

No. The Bostons have the capability to be maybe one dB louder than the Focals, but require an amplifier with twice the power.

[ouch]

you boys put everything in context. thanks for the info. maybe a set of each :D

[WarrenM]

get the ones you like the sound of better. nothing more, nothing less.

even tho me & warren have mentioned sensitivity, dont get to hung up on specs, rms, sensitvity & whatnot.

at the end of the day, either will go plenty loud. outright max volume means nothing if they both achieve desired loudness . think of it like this: deciding between 2 cars, car A has a top speed of 250kmh, the other 235kmh.. those figures dont matter if we dont plan to drive any faster than say 180kmh, and our usual top speed on a daily basis is 110kmh. car A having a 15kmh advantage over car B shouldnt be a factor cus either car will do fine in the top speed department.

just like either of those speakers will go really loudly off only 50ish rms. many people rarely use more than that on a daily basis, any more power is just headroom. so, dont let the deciding factor be how loud they can potentially play cus theyll both do that. no need to nitpick specs and worry if one can potentially be 3db louder if you never listen to it that loud.

hope that makes sense.

just pop into the store, LISTEN to em and decide then. its that simple.

This is really what it comes down to!

Get over your fascination with LOUD and replace it with a fascination for MUSIC.

LOUD is easy to do. Most people who play their music loud are NOT listening to it. In fact, it is very quickly undermining their hearing, which will affect their ability to listen to high QUALITY music for their entire lives. This is no joke. My 23 year old son's ears have the same level of high-frequency loss that my 54-year-old ears have. He can never get that back.

I'm not saying you should never listen to loud music. I listen to loud music often. But loud should not be the average - it should be the extreme, where the average is soft-to-moderate. The speakers which do soft very well, AND do loud well are the gems you should be looking for.

So, my advice to you is:

Choose a pair of speakers which sounds good loud AND sound good soft! Choose a good quality amplifier which meets the needs of the speakers. That means an RMS per channel output which is about the same as or higher than the RMS per channel rating of the speakers.

[trism]

Ive had both those brands

I had Focal 165V2, which i dont think are made anymore, and i had the Boston Pro60s, the model before the SE

The bostons where the supperior sounding speaker.

They may have had a retail of more than 3 times the Focals (400 vs 1500) and it definately showed.

I ran them both on the original Alpine PDX amps, the 4x150wrms.

The focals did not like playing below about 80hz, whereas the bostons i had crossed over at 54hz.

They played a lot lower, a lot more comfotably.

My advice would be go for the bostons. Spend the extra money now, and youll be happy with them for longer.

Just make sure you do a proper install with them, properly sound deadened doors, a proper mount to the door, and youll get plenty of enjoyment out of them.

Hell, i had people thinking i had a sub, with just the bostons!!

Then they copped the real suprise when i turned the sub on, a Resonant Engineering XXX getting 1500wrms is a lot of fun in a small car!!!