08-23-12: Cjl
>The wattage rating is the maximum wattage a speaker can handle before they burn out, and has nothing to do with the Fidelity limit per wattage limit!
To be pedantic it's a thermal limit if you feed the speaker pink noise (equal power in each octave) with a 6dB crest factor (difference between peak and average) with a 50Hz second-order high-pass and 5KHz second-order low-pass.
With about 7 octaves in that range the tweeter is seeing about 1/7 of that power and more than 30W of high frequency energy into a 200W rated speaker could fry it.
You can also reach the mechanical limits at much lower power levels at low frequencies.
Output at the maximum linear excursion into full space for various representative drivers at 3 feet is as follows at 120, 80, 40, and 20Hz. Mechanical limits are often 6dB higher although you can still run out with just a few Watts.
Size Driver Sd (cm^2) x xmax (mm) 120Hz 80Hz 40Hz 20Hz
4 1/2" Seas W12CY001 50 x 3 89dB 82dB 70dB 58dB
5 1/4" Peerless 830873 88 x 3.5 95dB 88dB 76dB 64dB
6 1/4" Seas L16RN-SL 104 x 6 101dB 94dB 82dB 70dB
7" Seas W18EX001 126 x 5 102dB 95dB 83dB 71dB
8.5" Seas W22EX001 220 x 5 106dB 99dB 87dB 75dB
10" Peerless 830452 352 x 12.5 118dB 111dB 99dB 87dB
>Why would you want to drive a speaker at 300 watts any way?
Nice jazz recordings yielding a pleasant 85dBC at the listening position can have listening position peaks of 103dB from each channel that could be 110dB at the speaker with 7dB of loss due to distance.
Although less than 3W RMS with a 85dB/1W/1 meter speaker that's 300W peak.
Of course, consumer power amplifiers are rated with a 3dB crest factor so an amplifier rated at 150 FTC Watts would do a fine job in that situation.
>The wattage rating is the maximum wattage a speaker can handle before they burn out, and has nothing to do with the Fidelity limit per wattage limit!
To be pedantic it's a thermal limit if you feed the speaker pink noise (equal power in each octave) with a 6dB crest factor (difference between peak and average) with a 50Hz second-order high-pass and 5KHz second-order low-pass.
With about 7 octaves in that range the tweeter is seeing about 1/7 of that power and more than 30W of high frequency energy into a 200W rated speaker could fry it.
You can also reach the mechanical limits at much lower power levels at low frequencies.
Output at the maximum linear excursion into full space for various representative drivers at 3 feet is as follows at 120, 80, 40, and 20Hz. Mechanical limits are often 6dB higher although you can still run out with just a few Watts.
Size Driver Sd (cm^2) x xmax (mm) 120Hz 80Hz 40Hz 20Hz
4 1/2" Seas W12CY001 50 x 3 89dB 82dB 70dB 58dB
5 1/4" Peerless 830873 88 x 3.5 95dB 88dB 76dB 64dB
6 1/4" Seas L16RN-SL 104 x 6 101dB 94dB 82dB 70dB
7" Seas W18EX001 126 x 5 102dB 95dB 83dB 71dB
8.5" Seas W22EX001 220 x 5 106dB 99dB 87dB 75dB
10" Peerless 830452 352 x 12.5 118dB 111dB 99dB 87dB
>Why would you want to drive a speaker at 300 watts any way?
Nice jazz recordings yielding a pleasant 85dBC at the listening position can have listening position peaks of 103dB from each channel that could be 110dB at the speaker with 7dB of loss due to distance.
Although less than 3W RMS with a 85dB/1W/1 meter speaker that's 300W peak.
Of course, consumer power amplifiers are rated with a 3dB crest factor so an amplifier rated at 150 FTC Watts would do a fine job in that situation.