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DIY speakers, Power handling.


Got a question, that any idiot with electrical understanding should know, but for some reason this idiot does not.

When constructing a loudspeaker, (ive read several books on this but non touched on this issue) how do you determine the loudspeakers power handling ability?

Is the power handling the same as the driver with the lowest handling ability?

Is it the sum of the total accepable power loads of all drivers combined?

Or is there an equasion used to figure this out? Like the total watt hgandling devided by number of drivers?

I am now reading some books on Solid State amplifier construction, and Randy Sloan touched on the issue that when driving a loudspeaker that the power is not evenly distributed over all of the drivers, IE, in a 2way design the woofer might use about 60-70% of the power while the tweeter uses only 30-40%. This apparently is one of the reasons there is such a sonic benefit from Bi-Amping so each driver will have access to the full amount of power it desires.

That is probably what im gonna end up doing, custom building the amplifier to match the drivers and bi-amping the little bastards.
slappy
5 responses Add your response
slappy OP
903 posts
 
Dunno Marakanetz,

The amplifier designs in his books boast very very low distortion rates. designs reign 60-550 watts, with distortion levels boasting down to .01% at 20khz and in some designs much much lower.

Hey, gotta start somewhere right?

As for an aneholic room, that is a little down the road.

my goal is to make this stuff for a living, i dont expect to have a viable product that people will want to buy for at least 10 years or so.

More than anything else, i just want to build my own system. I think it would be alot of fun. I want to see how good something i built can sound compared to say, the last rig i had.
stanwal's avatar
stanwal
3,147 posts
 
The first thing to remember is that it is too little power that blows up speakers, not too much. A speaker rated at 50 watts is in more danger from a 25 watt amp than a 200 watt one. Why? Most speakers are destroyed by amps that go into clipping under overload, in the worst cases eventually heating the voice coil to the destruction point. See if you can find Martin Colloms book "High Performance Loudspeakers". Seas of Norway use to offer some very nice kits, I don't know if they still do. Under no circumstance would I recommend designing your own crossover, this is undoubtedly the hardest part of the loudspeaker to design and is often flubbed by professionals. Stan
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
I guess that there will be soon nights dedicated to build an amp but will that worth the time spent if it realy won't sound as good as simple Nad that costs in low hundreds?

To design a good quality loudspeaker you should test and adjust a crossover at aneholic rooms or use ready to go designes of enclosures and crossovers.

Higher power implies to higher complication.

Active bi-amped system makes it simplier since you can use two lower-powered amplifiers with some effort made to build an electronic crossover. A system with active subwoofer is even more simplier in that case.
slappy OP
903 posts
 
Yeah. I got alot of questions because im doing alot of reading.

I got 2 books from Randy Slone about solid state amplifiers, and a couple others about loudspeaker construction.

Im gonna make a total DIY system.

Unfortunatly, the biggest problem with learning from books is the inability to ask questions.

Learning about current mirrors right now.

This SS amplifier design/construction is some pretty interesting stuff. My girlfriend is getting annoyed because im giving more attention to these books than her.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
Slap, you've got too many today!

You're right,
The woofer takes the most if it while the tweeter uses just a-little. Tweeter uses only 3...7% of the power.
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